Note 1 — Chapter I

In the preparation of this essay, I believe that I have examined all, or almost all, the literature of erudition and criticism, old and new, in connection with Ariosto; this will not escape the expert reader, although particular discussions and quotation of titles and pages of books have seemed to me to be superfluous on this occasion. But in judging this work, the reader should have present in his mind above all the chapter of De Sanctis on the Furioso (illustrated with fragments from his lectures at Zurich upon the poetry of chivalry), which forms the point of departure for these later investigations and conclusions.