Satire: genesis and history of the various editions

The Satires were composed between 1517 and 1525. They are seven, composed in terza rima or tercet, are of varying length, between 328 and 181 verses, and are addressed to relatives and friends. Ariosto took up this new literary genre after the publication of the first Furioso, focusing his attention  on social and intellectual biography of the writer. Ludovico confronts himself with the great Latin satirical tradition (Horace and Juvenal in primis), and with the recovery of satire that had taken place in humanistic literature, thus setting the foundations to modern satire. Among preceding similar works, Ariosto took into consideration, the Sermonum liber by Tito Vespasiano Strozzi, four satires based on Horace. Ariosto’s  Satires always make reference to a specific episode in Ariosto’s personal life, amplified by the use of the idea of dialogue as the basic structure, but arranged as letters. Ariosto used the Satires as a way of commenting on courtly life and the various people that for one reason or another surrounded him. Ludovico never had the Satires printed but gave away handwritten copies. In 1534 there appeared a posthumous clandestine copy, attributed to Francesco Rosso di Valenza, whilst another edition was published in 1535 by Bindoni and Pasini. In 1550 a further edition was published by Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari, edited by Anton Francesco Doni. This edition was reprinted several times. One more edition appeared in 1554 edited by Girolamo Ruscelli and printed by Plinio Pietrasanta. The success of the Satires lived on uninterrupted.