Francesco Berni (1497 - 1536), Italian poet, was born about 1497 at Lamporecchio, in Bibbiena, a district of Tuscany lying along the Upper Arno. Events May 10 - Amerigo Vespucci allegedly leaves Cádiz for his first voyage to the New World. ... // Events February 2 - Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires, Argentina. ... Poets are authors of poems, or of other forms of poetry such as dramatic verse. ... Tuscany (Italian Toscana) is a region in central Italy, bordering on Latium to the south, Umbria to the east, Emilia-Romagna and Liguria to the north, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. ... Arno River in Florence, Italy The Arno is a river in region of Italy, that crosses all the region from Mount Falterona (near the city of Arezzo, in Casentino area), to Pisa where it enters Tyrrhenian Sea. ...

His family was of good descent, but excessively poor. At an early age he was sent to Florence, where he remained till his 19th year. He then set out for Rome, trusting to obtain some assistance from his uncle, the Cardinal Bibbiena. The cardinal, however, did nothing for him, and he was obliged to accept a situation as clerk or secretary to Ghiberti, datary to Clement VII. The duties of his office, for which Berni was in every way unfit, were exceedingly irksome to the poet, who, however, made himself celebrated at Rome as the most witty and inventive of a certain club of literary men, who devoted themselves to light and sparkling effusions. Location within Italy Florence (Italian, Firenze) is a city in the center of Tuscany, in central Italy at 43°46′ N 11°15′ E. The city on the Arno River has a population of around 400,000, plus a suburban population in excess of 200,000. ... City motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus – SPQR (The Senate and the People of Rome) Founded 21 April 753 BC mythical, 1st millennium BC Region Latium Mayor Walter Veltroni (Democratici di Sinistra) Area  - City Proper  1290 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 2,546,807 almost 4,000,000 1... For the antipope (1378-1394) see Antipope Clement VII. Clement VII, né Giulio di Giuliano de Medici (May 26, 1478 – September 25, 1534) was pope from 1523 to 1534. ...

So strong was the admiration for Berni's verses, that mocking or burlesque poems have since been called poesie bernesca. About the year 1530 he was relieved from his servitude by obtaining a canonry in the cathedral of Florence. In that city he died in 1536, according to tradition poisoned by Duke Alessandro de Medici, for having refused to poison the duke's cousin, Ippolito de' Medici; but considerable obscurity rests over this story. Events June 25 - Augsburg confession presented to Charles V of Holy Roman Empire. ... This article is on the first Duke of Florence. ... Ippolito de Medici (1511-1535) was the illegitimate only son of Cardinal Giuliano de Medici. ...

Berni stands at the head of Italian comic or burlesque poets. For lightness, sparkling wit, variety of form and fluent diction, his verses are unsurpassed. Perhaps, however, he owes his greatest fame to the recasting (Rifacimento) of Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato. The enormous success of Ariostos Orlando Furioso had directed fresh attention to the older poem, from which it took its characters, and of which it is the continuation. But Boiardo's work, though good in plan, could never have achieved wide popularity on account of the extreme ruggedness of its style. Matteo Maria Boiardo (c. ... Orlando Innamorato is an epic poem written by the Italian Renaissance author Matteo Maria Boiardo. ...

Berni undertook the revision of the whole poem, avowedly altering no sentiment, removing or adding no incident, but simply giving to each line and stanza due gracefulness and polish. His task he completed with marvellous success; scarcely a line remains as it was, and the general opinion has pronounced decisively in favour of the revision over the original. To each canto he prefixed a few stanzas of reflective verse in the manner of Ariosto, and in one of these introductions he gives us the only certain information we have concerning his own life. Berni appears to have been favorably disposed towards the Reformation principles at that time introduced into Italy, and this may explain the bitterness of some remarks of his upon the church. The first edition of the Rifacimento was printed posthumously in 1541, and it has been supposed that a few passages either did not receive the authors final revision, or have been retouched by another hand. A canticle is a hymn (strictly excluding the Psalms) taken from the Bible. ... Ludovico Ariosto (September 8, 1474 _ July 6, 1533) was a Ferrarese poet, author of the epic poem Orlando furioso (1516), Orlando Enraged. He was born at Reggio, in Hungary in 1518, and wished Aniosto to accompany him. ... The Protestant Reformation was a movement which began in the 16th century as a series of attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church, but ended in division and the establishment of new institutions, most importantly Lutheranism, Reformed churches, and Anabaptists. ... Events The first official translation of the entire Bible in Swedish February 12 - Pedro de Valdivia founds Santiago de Chile. ...

A partial translation of Berni's Orlando was published by WS Rose (1823). William Stewart Rose (1775 - 1843) was a British poet and translator, son of George Rose, who held various Government offices, including that of Treasurer of the Navy. ...

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...