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When I embarked on this study, I expected that the numerous uncollated copies of the 1532 Furioso would reveal unrecorded states of some formes, which would allow me to make a contribution, perhaps an extensive one, to the constitution of the critical text of the work. These copies do indeed contain such states, with many textual variants, as has been said, yet I am unable to propose a single change to the text established by Debenedetti, because his text, in every case, already has the correct reading in these places.

To understand how this is so, we must go back to Debenedetti's work on this edition. Having considered the thirty-seven variants affecting the reading of the text, and decided, impressionistically but with remarkable accuracy, which reading was to be preferred, Debenedetti then looked at the way those readings were disposed in the eleven copies he had consulted. He found that two copies (nos 9 and 10), though they differed in one variant for which he

was uncertain of the correct reading, agreed with each other everywhere else, and always had the correct reading. Both copies, furthermore, had Type II of sheet inner A. Happily unaware of the view expressed by McKerrow in his Introduction, that "it is quite unscientific to speak of a more or less corrected copy of a book",[26] Debenedetti came to the conclusion that these two copies were superior to any other, and followed their readings in his text. In this he was helped by the fortunate chance that copy no. 10 was readily available to him, having been deposited by its then owner in the Biblioteca Nazionale of Debenedetti's home town, Turin, for his convenience.[27] Working from a much wider knowledge of the press-variants of the 1532 Furioso, I can only confirm Debenedetti's findings. While the other paper copies have a varying number of formes, ranging from nine to thirty, in their uncorrected state, copy no. 10 has none at all: all ninety-one formes with press-variants are present in their corrected state. The "perfection" of copy no. 9 is only slightly less: the only difference between it and copy no. 10 is the variant referred to by Debenedetti, which represents the second round of press-corrections on the inner forme of inner G. Given the number and percentage of formes involved, it is not possible to attribute the "perfection" of these copies to the workings of chance.

Debenedetti described copy no. 10, somewhat ambiguously, as "large", and as "the only copy with margins intact".[28] Thanks to the courtesy of the present owner, I have been able to examine the copy recently, and have formed the opinion that it is printed on larger paper than the other surviving paper copies. This opinion is based on a comparison between the measurements of the margins in copy no. 10 and those of the spaces between the edges of the type-page and the edges of the sheets in copy no. 21, a complete copy in sheets of the 1532 Furioso.[29] We have only to posit the practice of running the large paper copy or copies through the press last of all in the printing of each forme to obtain a satisfactory explanation of why copy no. 10 always has the corrected state.

The situation is not as clear in the case of copy no. 9, whose dimensions are approximately the same as those of the majority of other paper copies.

It is possible, of course, that it is a large paper copy, like copy no. 10, which has been heavily cropped. However, in many sheets a countermark is visible in one of the corners.[30] There is also the fact of the variant reading in the inner forme of inner G. which differs from the reading of copy no. 10; the reading of copy no. 9 was taken off the forme in the first part of the run, to judge from the readings of surviving copies (six in agreement with copy no. 9, fifteen with the reading of copy no. 10). Inner G of copy no. 9 certainly did not go through the press at the end of the run, and is thus probably not a large paper sheet. If copy no. 9 is not a large paper copy—and that is the direction in which the evidence at present seems to point—then the author and the printer were able and willing, when making up complete copies, to differentiate between normal-sized copies of each sheet which had corrected states and those which had not, and to form copies on normal-sized paper of the whole work containing only corrected states.[31] It is surely significant that both copy no. 9 and copy no. 10 also have the cancellans of sheet inner A.[32]

Ariosto was one of the greatest poets of the European Renaissance, and the Orlando furioso was his life's work. He published it in his home town, Ferrara, while in the employment of the Ducal family, who took a keen interest in the poem. He had the motivation and the means to ensure that the printing of his masterpiece was carried out under his close and continual supervision. The evidence suggests, as I have argued in the preceding pages, that, when publishing the definitive edition of his great work, he availed himself of these circumstances to receive and heavily correct proof-sheets, either of each forme, or of both formes of a sheet together, and that he arranged with the printer to have some copies made up consisting only of sheets in the corrected state. These are not unnatural requirements on the part of an author; on the contrary, for one as great as Ariosto, and in his enviable position, it would have been surprising if he had been content with less.[33]