The vernacular translations of "The true history" and their influence on Ariosto's work

A large corpus of Lucian's works was translated into the vernacular around 1478-1480 in Ferrara for Ercole I d'Este, most likely by the humanist physician Niccolo Leoniceno, mainly directly from the Greek and not from previous Latin versions. This is attested in the MS Vaticano Chigiano L.vI.215 and several Venetian editions issued between 1525 (princeps by the printer Niccolo Zop-pino) and 1551. In the corpus, The True History stands out as a parody of travel stories full of mirabilia. The vernacular translation of the manuscript (La vera historia), however, is superimposable only in the final part to that of the printed editions (Le vere narrazioni) one is conducted on Greek, the other on the Latin version De veris narrationibus (c. 1439-1443) by Lilio 'Fifernate, according to the draft edited by Benedetto Bordon and printed the first time in 1494. Like other chivalric romance authors, Ariosto is also inspired by True History, from which he derives the name of the hippogriff and the trip to the moon since the first draft of the Furioso, the swallowing of Astolfo and Ruggiero by Alcina's whale in the Cinque canti, and, after the definitive renunciation of them, Orlando's fight with the Orca in the Furioso of 1532. Textual evidence shows that he refers to the manuscript of Lucian's vernacular translations before they are published; but after the princeps of 1525 he also resorts to a printed edition, and is also inspired by a woodcut illustration for the scene of Orlando 'fishing' the Orca.