Giovan Battista Pigna


Giovan Battista Pigna was an Italian humanist, poet and historian from Ferrara. A reformer of the University of Ferrara, Pigna was secretary to Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara and court historian at Ferrara.
Pigna's I romanzi argued that chivalric romances like those of Ariosto were a modern form of poetry equal to those considered by Aristotle's Poetics. Torquato Tasso, who succeeded Pigna as court historian, attacked Pigna's defence of Ariostan poetry in his Discorsi dell'arte poetica.

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