Composed during the most difficult years of Ludovico Ariosto’s relationship with the Este court, the Satire are known for presenting a picture of their author as a simple, quiet-loving man, and also as a man who can speak only the truth. However, the self-portrait offered by the Satire of the author as a man incapable of lying stands in direct contrast to the depiction presented by St. John in canto 35 of the Orlando Furioso of all writers (and thus, implicitly, of Ariosto) as liars. This article investigates the relationship between such contrasting self-portraits of Ariosto, aiming to overcome the traditional opposition of satire as the mode for honest speech—and for a truthful portrayal of the author’s self—and epic as the mode for courtly flattering. Composée pendant les années les plus difficiles de sa relation avec la cour d’Este, les Satires de l’Arioste sont connues pour la représentation qu’elles donnent de leur auteur comme un homme simple aimant la tranquillité et ne disant jamais rien que la vérité. Toutefois, cette représentation de l’auteur comme un homme incapable de mentir contredit directement la représentation des écrivains (incluant implicitement l’Arioste lui-même comme menteurs, avancée par saint Jean dans le chant 35 de son Orlando Furioso.) Cet article examine donc les relations qu’entretiennent les différents autoportraits qu’offre l’Arioste et cherche à dépasser l’opposition traditionnelle entre la satire comme forme du discours honnête — qui comprend l’autoportrait honnête de l’auteur —, et le discours épique comme mode de flatterie de cour.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Ugolini, P., (2025), "Self-Portraits of a Truthful Liar: Satire, Truth-Telling, and Courtliness in Ludovico Ariosto’s Satire and Orlando Furioso", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Ugolini, Paola. "Self-Portraits of a Truthful Liar: Satire, Truth-Telling, and Courtliness in Ludovico Ariosto’s Satire and Orlando Furioso." Renaissance and Reformation 40 (1): 2017. 141-160. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v40i1.28451. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.