THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

VOL. 17, NO. 481.] SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1831. [PRICE 2d.



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RELICS OF ARIOSTO.

[Illustration: Inkstand.]

[Illustration: Chair.]


We need not bespeak the reader's interest in these "trivial fond"
relics--these consecrated memorials--of one of the most celebrated poets
of Italy. They are preserved with reverential care at Ferrara, the
poet's favourite residence, though not his birthplace. The Ferrarese,
however, claim him "exclusively as their own" Lord Byron, in the
Notes[1] to _Childe Harold_, canto 4, says, "the author of the
Orlando is jealously claimed as the Homer, not of Italy, but Ferrara.
The mother of Ariosto was of Reggio, and the house in which he was born
is carefully distinguished by a tablet with these words:--'_Qui nacque
Ludovico Ariosto il giorno 8 di Settembre dell' anno_ 1474.' But the
Ferrarese make light of the accident by which their poet was born
abroad, and claim him exclusively for their own. _They possess his