Giovanni Battista Guarini

GUARINI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA Italian poet, author of the Pastor fido, was born at Ferrara on Dec. Io, just seven years before the birth of Tasso. He studied both at Pisa and Padua, and, before he was 20, became professor of moral philosophy in his native city. In 1567 he entered the service of Alphonso II., duke of Ferrara. Guarini aimed at State em ployment as the serious business of his life, and was sent on various embassies and missions by the duke. But he spent his time and money to little purpose, suffered from the spite and ill-will of two successive secretaries to the duke,—Pigna and Montecatini, quarrelled with his old friend Tasso and at the end of 14 years of service found himself half-ruined, with a large family and no prospects. When Tasso was condemned to S. Anna, the duke promoted Guarini to the vacant post of court poet. He found the position uncongenial, and retired in 1582 to his ancestral farm, the Villa Guarina, where he wrote the Pastor fido. In 1585 he was at Turin superintending the first public performance of his drama, whence Alphonso recalled him to Ferrara, and gave him the office of secretary of State. This reconciliation did not last long. Guarini moved to Florence, then to Rome, and back' again to Florence, to the court of Ferdinand de' Medici. He found a patron for a time in Francesco Maria of Urbino, and finally took refuge in his native Ferrara, which, since the death of Alphonso, had devolved to the papal see. Here, and at the Villa Guarina, his last years were passed in study, lawsuits and polemical disputes with his contemporary critics, until 1612, when he died at Venice in his 7 5 th year.

The

Pastor fido (first published in 159o) is a pastoral drama, tragicommedia pastorale, composed not without reminiscences of Tasso's Aminta. Here and there the taste of the i 7th century makes itself felt in frigid conceits and forced antitheses; nor does Guarini abstain from sententious maxims which reveal the moralist rather than the poet. Yet these are but minor blem ishes in a masterpiece of diction, glittering and faultless like a polished bas-relief of hard Corinthian bronze. That a single pas toral should occupy so prominent a place in the history of litera ture seems astonishing, until we reflect that Italy, upon the close of the i6th century, expressed itself in the Pastor fido, and that the influence of this drama was felt through all the art of Europe till the epoch of the Revolution. It is not a mere play. The sensual refinement proper to an age of social decadence found in it the most exact embodiment, and made it the code of gallantry for the next two centuries.

The best edition of the Pastor fido is the loth, published at Venice (Ciotti) in 1602. A modern edition is that in Scrittori d'Italia, ed. by Brognoligo (Bari, 1914). For Guarini's miscellaneous Rime, the Fer rara edition (4 vols., 1737) may be consulted. His polemical writings, Verato primo and secondo, and his prose comedy called Idropica, were published at Venice, Florence and Rome, between 1588 and 1614.