Juvenal

The presence of Juvenal in Ariosto’s Satires has behind it a precise interest within the area of the Po Valley for this satirical Latin poet that culminated with Antonio Vinciguerra’s [1505]. vernacular verse in terza rima. Scholars have noted Juvenal’s strong influence on Ariosto’s first two satires, albeit cohabitating with a similar  influence of Horace, above all for some motifs linked to the conditions of servants. Juvenal is also present, if to a lesser extent, in Satire V, albeit through the mediation of Boccaccio. Ariosto takes from Juvenal a dark and resentful inclination that inserts itself into the more hidden folds of satirical discourse.  For example, what Ludovico writes in Satire I, 79-81: ‘Io mi riduco al pane; e quindi freme / la colera; cagion che alli dui motti / gli amici et io siamo a contesa insieme’ explicitly recalls the polemic theme contained in Juvenal, V 159-160: ‘effundere bilem / cogaris’ and 169: ‘stricto pane tacetis’. The invocation contained in Satire I 115-117 addressed at Andrea Marone, court poet and a member of Ippolito d’Este’s family, who wanted to accompany the Cardinal to Hungary but was left behind in favour of Celio Calcagnini, echoes similar verses by Juvenal. ‘Fa a mio senno, Maron: tuoi versi getta / con la lira in un cesso, e una parte impara, / se beneficii vuoi, che sia più accetta’ (Satire I 115-117). ‘Siqua aliunde putas rerum expectanda tuarum / praesidia atque ideo croceae membrana tabellae / impletur, lignorum aliquid posce ocius et, quae / componis, dona Veneris, Telesine, marito / aut clude et positos tinea pertunde libellos’ (Juvenal, VII 22-26). Directly referred to the tasks of servants is the passage in Satire I, 143: ‘smembrar su la forcina in aria starne’ derived from Juvenal V 120 sgg: ‘Structorem…/…spectes et chironomunta volanti / cultello, donec peragat dictata magistri / omnia’. The Latin satirical poet is also used as a second degree source for the Furioso, for example in XXXIX 32, 3-5: ‘restò pallido in faccia, come quello / che ‘l piede incauto d’improvviso ha messo / sopra il serpente velenoso e fello’ that recalls Juvenal, I, 1, 43: ‘Palleat, ut nudis pressit qui calcibus anguem’.