The true epic poets, Luigi Pulci, Boiardo, and Ariosto, are
carried on more rapidly by the stream of their narrative; yet in all of
them we must recognize the lightness and precision of their descriptive
touch as one of the chief elements of their greatness. Franco Sacchetti
amuses himself with repeating the short speeches of a troop of pretty
women caught in the woods by a shower of rain.
Other scenes of moving life are to be looked for in the military
historians. In a lengthy poem, dating from an earlier period, we find a
faithful picture of a combat of mercenary soldiers in the fourteenth
century, chiefly in the shape of the orders, cries of battle, and
dialogue with which it is accompanied.
But the most remarkable productions of this kind are the realistic
descriptions of country life, which are found most abundantly in
Lorenzo il Magnifico and the poets of his circle.
Since the time of Petrarch, an unreal and conventional style of bucolic
poetry had been in vogue, which, whether written in Latin or Italian,
was essentially a copy of Virgil. Parallel to this, we find the
pastoral novel of Boccaccio and other works of the same kind down to
the 'Arcadia' of Sannazaro, and later still, the pastoral comedy of
Tasso and Guarini. They are works whose style, whether poetry or prose
is admirably finished and perfect, but in which pastoral life is ideal
dress for sentiments which belong to a wholly sphere of culture.
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