Note 176 — Chapter XI

For the dates of Ariosto's dramatic compositions, see above, Part I, p. 499. The edition I shall refer to, is that of Giovanni Tortoli (Firenze, Barbèra, 1856), which gives both the prose and verse redactions of the Cassaria and Suppositi. It may here be incidentally remarked that there are few thoroughly good editions of Italian plays. Descriptions of the dramatis personæ, stage directions, and illustrative notes are almost uniformly wanting. The reader is left to puzzle out an intricate action without help. All the slang, the local customs, and the passing allusions which give life to comedy and present so many difficulties to the student, are for the most part unexplained.