...ttro Poeti). But Ariosto and Tasso are now practically dropped out of the running; and those who still read Petrarch are expected to treat rather deferentially those for whom Italian literature means Dante only. Yet Voltaire wrote of Dante, only a century and a half ago, that although occasionally, under favorable circumstances, he wrote lines not unworthy of Tasso or Ariosto, yet his work was, as a ...