Mantua

The city of the House of Gonzaga and in the early XVI century one of the most exceptional courts of the renaissance from a cultural point of view, in rivalry with Ferrara. To the city of Mantua is tied the first piece of certain information concerning the composition of the Orlando furioso: on 1 February 1507 Ludovico went there as ambassador for Cardinal Ippolito and was received by Marchioness Isabella d’Este Gonzaga, the wife of Francesco Gonzaga, a lady of great culture and fine intellect. In a letter of 3 February to Ippolito, the Marchioness congratulated him for having chosen Ludovico as ambassador and told him how she had passed a coupe of very pleasant days "cum la naratione de l’opera che ‘l compone" (listening to him talk about the work he is writing). For sure she was referring to the Furioso, even if we cannot deduce much as to far ahead the poet had got with the work. To Mantua Ludovico went on mission in September and October 1509, whilst again tied to the writing of the Furioso is the presence of Ludovico in the city on 5 May 1516 with a fair number of copies of the first edition of his work, to be placed in various ways. He was a guest at the house of the engineer Leonardo Bruschi, gave a copy of his book to Marquis Francesco Gonzaga, another to Cardinal Sigismondo Gonzaga and a third to Marchioness Isabella. Right from the start the impact the Furioso had on the Gonzaga court was extraordinary. Ludovico stayed in Mantua as long as it took him to self the copies of his book he had brought with him. In January 1529 the Cassaria was staged in Mantua in the presence of the Marchioness Isabella d’Este. After the publication of the third Furioso, in November 1532, Ludovico returned to Mantua with Alfonso I to greet Charles V, a guest of the Gonzagas, who had come to Italy to meet Pope Clement VII. The poet was by then quite sickly and it is thus  to be excluded that he might have received some form of public acclaim whilst in Mantua. His son Virginio categorically denies news of such an event.