Delivered_ in the seventeenth century was immense, and all the
literatures of Europe have innumerable references to the personages and
episodes of the poem. In Italy there were fervid partisans of the
superiority of Tasso over Ariosto or of Ariosto over Tasso, and many
duels on the subject, the most bellicose being, as always happens,
between those who had read neither.

BERNI.--Berni, like Ariosto, was half burlesque in the diverting portions
of his works. He wrote satires which were often virulent, paradoxes such
as the eulogy of the plague and of famine, and an _Amorous Orlando_
which is quite agreeable. The Bernesque type, that is, the humoristic,
was created by him and bears his name.

SANNAZARO.--Sannazaro wrote both in Latin and Italian. His chief claim to
fame lies in his _Arcadia_, an idyllic poem of bucolic sentiment,
destined to evoke thousands of imitations. He also produced eclogues and
sonnets in Italian which give sufficient grounds for regarding him as one
of the chief masters of that language.

MACHIAVELLI.--Great thinker, great politician, great moral philosopher,
Machiavelli possessed one of the most powerful minds ever known. He wrote
_The Prince_, _Discourses upon Livius_, an _Art of War_, diplomatic
letters and reports, for he was at one time secretary to the Florentine
Republic, a _History of Florence_, a comedy (_The Mandrake_),
romances and tales. _The Prince_ is a treatise of the art of acquiring
and preserving power by all possible means and more particularly by
intelligent and discreet crime. Machiavelli emphasised the separation, at
times relative, at times absolute, which exists between politics and
morals. His _Discourses upon Livius_ are full of sense, penetration, and
profundity; his light works show a singular dexterity of thought united