The Studenti

Is a comedy in verse that Ariosto left unfinished at the fourth scene of IV act. At least the first draft probably dates back to 1518-1519, the happy period in which the poet, having freed himself from the service of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, was not yet oppressed by the fierce contention over Rinaldo Ariosto’s inheritance. The narrative structure is somewhat muddled, with a prevalence of the fabula over the plays that makes it more similar to the Suppositi than the Cassaria. Albeit an unfinished work, the development of the narrative seems confused, labyrinth-like and hard to untangle. Unlike the first two plays in prose, one here notes a moral perspective that prompts the exchange of characters not so much form a humorous point of view but  more from an anthropological standpoint, with the activation of continuous illusory chains that reveal how man is easily beguiled. The comedy had two continuations, both at the hands of members of the Ariosto family: the first and better known was done by Ariosto’s brother Gabriele Ariosto and was published in Venice in 1547 with the title Scolastica. The second, less accessible, was composed by Ludovico’s favourite son Virginio and was called the Imperfetta and can be found in Magliabechi’s manuscript VII, 6, 86. A comparative analysis of the Scolastica  and the Imperfetta makes it possible to identify the part written by Ludovico. Both his brother Gabriele and Virginio almost certainly first wrote their continuations in prose and then converted  them into proparoxytone. Of this incomplete work Ariosto himself talks late on in life, in a letter dated 17 December 1532 to Guidobaldo della Rovere: ‘Gli è vero che già molt’anni ne principiai un’altra [commedia] la quale io nomino I Studenti; ma per molte occupazioni non l’ho mai finita’. Why Ariosto never finished this work is the subject of open debate among scholars.