apt to discover the absurdity of staking existence on small ones. Ariosto
did not care to travel out of Italy. He preferred, he says, going round
the earth in a map; visiting countries without having to pay innkeepers,
and ploughing harmless seas without thunder and lightning[40].

His outward religion, like the one he ascribed to his friend Cardinal
Bembo, was "that of other people." He did not think it of use to disturb
their belief; yet excused rather than blamed Luther, attributing his
heresy to the necessary consequences of mooting points too subtle for
human apprehension[41]. He found it impossible, however, to restrain his
contempt of bigotry; and, like most great writers in Catholic countries,
was a derider of the pretensions of devotees, and the discords and
hypocrisies of the convent. He evidently laughed at Dante's figments
about the other world; not at the poetry of them, for that he admired,
and sometimes imitated, but at the superstition and presumption. He
turned the Florentine's moon into a depository of non-sense; and found no
hell so bad as the hearts of tyrants. The only other people he put into
the infernal regions are ladies who were cruel to their lovers! He had
a noble confidence in the intentions of his Creator; and died ill the
expectation of meeting his friends again in a higher state of existence.

Of Ariosto's four brothers, one became a courtier at Naples, another a
clergyman, another an envoy to the Emperor Charles the Fifth; and the
fourth, who was a cripple and a scholar, lived with Lodovico, and
celebrated his memory. His two sons, whose names were Virginio and
Gianbattista, and who were illegitimate (the reader is always to bear
in mind the more indulgent customs of Italy in matters of this nature,
especially in the poet's time), became, the first a canon in the
cathedral of Ferrara, and the other an officer in the army. It does not
appear that he had any other children.