Lyric poetry in the 16th century was dominated by the model of Petrarch mainly because of the acceptance of the Renaissance theory of imitation and the teaching of Bembo. Almost all the principal writers of the century wrote lyric poems in the manner of Petrarch. Surprising originality was to be found in Della Casa’s poems, and Galeazzo di Tarsia stood out from contemporary poets by virtue of a vigorous style. Also worthy of note are the passionate sonnets of the Paduan woman poet Gaspara Stampa and those of Michelangelo.

The tradition of humorous and satirical verse also was kept alive during the 16th century. Outstanding among its practitioners was Francesco Berni, whose burlesque poems, mostly dealing with indecent or trivial subjects, showed his wit and stylistic skill. Didactic poetry, already cultivated by humanist writers, was also continued during this period, chiefly by Giovanni Rucellai, who recast in Le api (1539; “The Bees”) the fourth book of the Roman poet Virgil’s Georgics, and by Luigi Alamanni, in six books on agriculture and rustic life called La coltivazione (1546).

The most refined expression of the classical taste of the Renaissance was to be found in Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (1516; “Orlando Mad”; Eng. trans. Orlando Furioso), which incorporated many episodes derived from popular medieval and early Renaissance epics. The poem is in fact a continuation of Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato and takes up all of its interwoven stories where Boiardo left off, but its unique qualities derive from Ariosto’s sustained inspiration and masterful narrative technique and his detached, ironic attitude toward his characters. Orlando furioso was the most perfect expression of the literary tendencies of the Italian Renaissance at this time, and it exercised enormous influence on later European Renaissance literature. Ariosto also composed comedies that, by introducing imitation of Latin comedy, marked the beginning of Renaissance drama in the vernacular.

There were also attempts to renew the epic by applying Aristotle’s “rules” of composition. Gian Giorgio Trissino, a theorist on language, wrote his Italia liberata dai Goti (“Italy Liberated from the Goths”) according to the strictest Aristotelian rules, while Alamanni tried to focus the narrative on a single character in Girone il cortese (1548; “Girone the Courteous”) and Avarchide (1570), an imitation of the Iliad of Homer. Giambattista Giraldi, while more famous as a storyteller and a tragic playwright, was a literary theorist who tried to apply his own pragmatic theories in his poem Ercole (1557; “Hercules”).

Two burlesque medley forms of verse were invented during the century. Fidenziana poetry derives its name from a work by Camillo Scroffa, a poet who wrote Petrarchan parodies in a combination of Latin words and Italian form and syntax. Macaronic poetry, on the other hand, which refers to the Rabelaisian preoccupation of the characters with eating, especially macaroni, is a term given to verse consisting of Italian words used according to Latin form and syntax. Teofilo Folengo, a Benedictine monk, was the best representative of macaronic literature, and his masterpiece was a poem in 20 books called Baldus (1517). The tendency to parody, ridiculing the impractical excesses of humanist literature, was present in both fidenziana and macaronic verse.

Torquato Tasso, son of the poet Bernardo Tasso, was the last great poet of the Italian Renaissance and one of the greatest of Italian literature. In his epic Gerusalemme liberata (1581; Jerusalem Delivered) he summed up a literary tradition typical of the Renaissance: the classical epic renewed according to the spiritual interests of his own time. The subject of the poem is the First Crusade to recapture Jerusalem. Its structure dramatizes the struggle to preserve a central purpose by dominating and holding in check centrifugal urges toward sensual and emotional indulgence. Its pathos lies in the enormous cost of self-control. L’Aminta (1573), a joyous and uninhibited drama, was the best example of Tasso’s youthful poetry and belonged to the new literary genre of pastoral (dealing with idealized rural life). Gerusalemme liberata, however, was the result of a balance in the poet’s conflicting aspirations: a Christian subject dealt with in a classical way. In the subsequent Gerusalemme conquistata (1593; “Jerusalem Vanquished”), Tasso imitated Homer and recast his poem according to more rigid Aristotelian rules and the ideals of the Roman Catholic church’s reaction against the Protestant Reformation, known as the Counter-Reformation. Tasso’s conflict had ended in the victory of the moralistic principle: poetically the new poem was a failure. Tasso also wrote shorter lyric verse throughout his life, including religious poems, while his prose dialogues show a style no longer exclusively dominated by classical models. His delicate madrigals were set to music by the age’s most famous composers.

Drama

Trissino’s Sofonisba (written 1514–15; the title is the name of the female protagonist) was the first tragedy of Italian vernacular literature to follow classical precedent; its structure derived from Greek models, but its poetic qualities were somewhat mediocre. Toward the middle of the 16th century Giambattista Giraldi (Cinzio) reacted against imitation of Greek drama by proposing the Roman tragedian Seneca as a new model, and in nine tragedies and tragicomedies—written between 1541 and 1549—he showed some independence from Aristotelian rules. He greatly influenced European drama, particularly the English theatre of the Elizabethan period. Perhaps the most successful tragedy of the century is Torquato Tasso’s Re Torrismondo (“King Torrismondo”).

The Italian comedies of the century, inspired by Latin models but also by the tradition of the novella, possessed greater artistic value than the tragedies, and they reflected contemporary life more fully: they could be considered as the starting point for modern European drama. To the comedies of Ariosto and Machiavelli should be added a lively play, La Calandria (first performed 1513; The Follies of Calandro), by Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena, and the five racy comedies written by Pietro Aretino. Giordano Bruno, a great Italian philosopher who wrote dialogues in Italian on his new cosmology and antihumanist ideas, also wrote a comedy, Il candelaio (1582; The Candlemaker).

Since the mid-20th century the actor Angelo Beolco (“Il Ruzzante”) has become generally recognized as one of the most powerful dramatists of the 16th century. His works, often monologues written in a rural Paduan dialect, treat the problems of the oppressed peasant with realism and profound seriousness. Another dialect playwright of the same century, now also more widely appreciated, is the Venetian Andrea Calmo, who showed a nice gift for characterization in his comedies of complex amorous intrigue.

Narrative

The classicist trend established by Pietro Bembo also affected narrative literature, for which the obvious model was Boccaccio’s Decameron. Originality and liveliness of expression were to be found in the 22 stories called Le cene (written after 1549; “The Suppers”) of the Florentine apothecary Anton Francesco Grazzini. The worldly monk Agnolo Firenzuola produced several stories, including the fable Asino d’oro (1550), a free adaptation of Apuleius’s Golden Ass. The cleric and short-story writer Matteo Bandello started a new trend in 16th-century narrative with 214 stories that were rich in dramatic and romantic elements while not aiming at classical dignity. This trend was partially followed also by Giambattista Giraldi in his collection of 112 stories called (with a Greek etymology) Gli ecatommiti (1565; “The Hundred Stories”).