My Muse Will Have a Story to Paint: Selected Prose of Ludovico Ariosto

Ariosto's correspondence paints a detailed portrait of the world he lived and wrote in. While some letters illuminate his day-to-day life, including his work as a provincial commissioner for the ruling Este family of Ferrara, others shed light on the composition and production of his poems and plays, allowing a glimpse of the man in his creative workshop. Herbal Doctor, a parody of humanism in general and neoplatonic philosophy in particular, may mark a defense of Ariosto's decision to turn away from thephilological world of his contemporaries in order to pursue a different kind of learning.