Boiardo, Matteo Maria, Count of Scandiano ?1441-1494
Italian poet

Born in Scandiano, he studied at Ferrara, lived at the court there and was appointed Governor of Modena (1481), and of Reggio (1487). Because of his clemency and opposition to capital punishment, he has been called the 'Flower of Chivalry'. His early lyric poems in Canzioniere were inspired by a woman, Antonia Caprara, whom he met in 1469, but his fame rests on the unfinished Orlando Innamorato (1486), a long narrative poem in which the Charlemagne romances are recast into ottava rima. His other works comprise Latin eclogues, a versification of Lucian's Timon, translations of Herodotus, the Ass of Lucian, and the Golden Ass of Apuleius, and a series of sonnets and Canzoni (1499).

Bibliography: G Reichenbach, Matteo Maria Boiardo (1929)