Born in Ferrara in 1530, Pigna was one of the leading figures at the Este court during Tasso’s time there. He was a University reformer and later acted as secretary to Duke Alfonso. In addition to these duties, Pigna also wrote a range of works. In relation to Tasso, his Latin poems dedicated to the young Alfonso or his works on duels and princes were of little import compared to his treaty I romanzi, published in 1554. Its main point was a claim for the autonomy of chivalric romances in regard to Aristotle’s Poetics, and thus the view that the genre, represented at its peak by Ariosto’s Furioso, was a modern form of poetry, complete with its own rules and liberties. This work was one of the butts of Tasso’s polemics (together with Giraldi Cinzio’s Discorso dei romanzi) in Discorsi dell’arte poetica, based on the axiom that Aristotle’s pronouncements were of general validity, and the first, theoretical, statement attacking the validity of the highly successful Ariostan model. Divided by theory and by inevitable rivalry in the lively context of the Este court (although Pigna is depicted as a positive figure n the Aminta, under the name of Elpino), the two poets shared a passion for Lucrezia Bendidio, the subject of Tasso’s love poems and Pigna’s entire canzoniere, entitled Ben divino (see the edition by Neuro Bonifazi, Bologna, 1965). Moreover, Tasso composed and publicly read his Considerazioni on three of Pigna’s canzoni, comparing Pigna’s work to the Petrarchan model, and not unfavourably. Upon Pigna’s premature death in 1575, Tasso was called upon to substitute him as court historian. While his predecessor had eagerly sought to reconstruct the history of the Este dynasty (the first volume of his Historia appeared in 1570), Tasso accepted the post unenthusiastically, already discontent with his life at Ferrara.

Title page of Pigna’s Historia dei Principi d’Este, published in Ferrara in 1570