'In The Romance Epics of Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso , Jo Ann Cavallo demonstrates an impressive mastery of the texts of three massively complex poets, a keen understanding of the social and intellectual constructs with which they worked, and an easy familiarity with the extensive critical literature about them. She uses these formidable assets to advance a compelling and original theory about their relationship to each other. That has been a vexing and controversial problem, and Cavallo illuminates it with freshness, modesty, and great clarity of focus.' --Werner Gundersheimer, Director Emeritus, Folger Shakespeare Library 'Jo Ann Cavallo has written a smart, clear, and most engaging study of the "three crowns" of Ferrara - Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso. Her interpretation of the deeper concerns of their poems - the interaction between history, ethics of duty and pleasure, simulation and dissimulation etc.- explores in a new light the difficult relation existing between the poets and the realities of power in the world of the Este court. Cavallo's critical insights into the folds and the "unsaid" of their poetic representations amount to an innovative and concise re-reading of the strategies sustaining their great romance epics.' --Giuseppe Mazzotta, Sterling Professor of Humanities for Italian, Yale University.