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BERNI, FRANCESCO (1497–1536)
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See also:BERNI, See also:FRANCESCO (1497–1536) , See also:Italian poet, was See also:born about 1497 at Lamporecchio, in Bibbiena, a See also:district lying alongthe Upper See also:Arno. His See also:family was of See also:good descent, but excessively poor. At an See also:early See also:age he was sent to See also:Florence, where he remained till his 19th See also:year. He then set out for See also:Rome, trusting to obtain some assistance from his See also:uncle, the See also:Cardinal Bibbiena. The cardinal, however, did nothing for him, and he was obliged to accept a situation as clerk or secretary to See also:Ghiberti, datary to See also:Clement VII. The duties of his See also:office, for which Berni was in every way unfit, were exceedingly irksome to the poet, who, however, made himself celebrated at Rome as the most witty and inventive of a certain See also:club of See also:literary men, who devoted them-selves to See also:light and sparkling effusions. So strong was the admiration for Berni's verses, that mocking or See also:burlesque poems have since been called poesie bernesca. About the year 1530 he was relieved from his See also:servitude by obtaining a canonry in the See also:cathedral of Florence. In that See also:city he died in 1536, according to tradition poisoned by See also:Duke Alessandro de' See also:Medici, for having refused to See also:poison the duke's See also:cousin, Ippolito de' Medici; but considerable obscurity rests over this See also:story. Berni stands at the See also:head of Italian comic or burlesque poets. For lightness, sparkling wit, variety of See also:form and fluent diction, his verses are unsurpassed. Perhaps, however, he owes his greatest fame to the recasting (Rifacimento) of See also:Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato. The enormous success of See also:Ariosto's Orlando Furioso had directed fresh See also:attention to the older poem, from which it took its characters, and of which it is the continuation. But Boiardo's See also:work, though good in See also:plan, could never have achieved wide popularity on See also:account of the extreme ruggedness of its See also:style. Berni undertook the revision of the whole poem, avowedly altering no sentiment, removing or adding no incident, but simply giving to each See also:line and See also:stanza due gracefulness and See also:polish. His task he completed with marvellous success; scarcely a line remains as it was, and the See also:general See also:opinion has pronounced decisively in favour of the revision over the See also:original. To each See also:canto he prefixed a few stanzas of reflective See also:verse in the manner of Ariosto, and in one of these introductions he gives us the only certain See also:information we have concerning his own See also:life. Berni appears to have been favour-ably disposed towards the See also:Reformation principles at that See also:time introduced into See also:Italy, and this may explain the bitterness of some remarks of his upon the See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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