Ludovico Ariosto

Ludovico Ariosto was born in northern Italy on 8 September 1474 and spent much of his career as a poet in service to noble patrons. In 1516 he published Orlando Furioso, picking up where Matteo Maria Boiardo's unfinished Orlando Innamorato left off - Charlemagne, Orlando, and the Franks battling Saracens across a maze of sideplots. He composed it in ottava rima and laced the whole thing with narrative commentary, revising and expanding it until 1532. The poem became less a romance than a satire, its chivalric trappings undercut by wit. Separately, Ariosto coined the Italian term umanesimo - humanism - to describe a philosophy centered on human strength and potential rather than subordination to God, a coinage that helped anchor Renaissance thought. He died on 6 July 1533.