Note 201 — Chapter III
Reading edition
Trissino, ii. 127-130. Trissino seems to follow Cicero, De Orat. ii. 58 sq. It is to these Italian discussions of the ludicrous that the theory of laughter formulated by Hobbes, and after him by Addison, owes its origin. For Renaissance discussions of wit and humor before the introduction of Aristotle's Poetics, cf. the third and fourth books of Pontano's De Sermone, and the second book of Castiglione's Cortigiano.