Note 174 — Chapter III

Most of the identifications made by Menagio in his edition, Paris, 1650, have generally been accepted since, except by Fontanini, who would identify Pigna with Mopso. There seems, however, to be little doubt possible on the point, though it is not to Tasso's credit. For an audience conversant with the inner life of the court, the references to Elpino contained whole volumes of contemporary scandal. In Licori we may see Lucrezia Bendidio. This lady, the wife of Count Paolo Machiavelli, and sister-in-law of Guarini, is said to have been the mistress of Cardinal Luigi d' Este; but Pigna, too, courted her, and brooked no rivalry on the part of fledgling poets. Tasso appears to have paid her imprudent attention in the early days of his residence at Ferrara, and thus incurred the secretary's wrath. The princess Leonora remonstrated with her poet on his folly, and Tasso, by way of palinode, wrote a fulsome commentary on three of Pigna's wooden canzoni, ranking them with Petrarch's. Tasso is appareutly allnding to this incident when he puts into Elpino's mouth the words: