[2] Written in ottava rima, his "poema eroicomico" consists of twelve substantial cantos and deals with the regional rivalry between Ghibelline Modena and Guelph Bologna in the 14th century.

To avoid giving offence in a still divided Italy, the book was first published from Paris under the name of Androvinci Melisone,[3] but was soon afterwards reprinted in Venice with illustrations by Gasparo Salviani, and with the author’s real name.

[4] The subject of Tassoni's poem was the war which the inhabitants of Modena declared against those of Bologna, on the refusal of the latter to restore to them some towns which had been occupied ever since the time of the Emperor Frederick II.

[7] Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni, in his Istoria della Volgar Poesia (1698), records his doubt whether the invention of the heroicomic poem ought to be ascribed to Tassoni, but instead to Francesco Bracciolini.

Crescimbeni adds that, because Tassoni had severely ridiculed the Bolognese, Bartolomeo Bocchini (1604-1648/53), to revenge his countrymen, published from Venice in 1641 a poem in the same vein with the title Le Pazzie dei Savi (The Madness of the Wise), or alternatively the Lambertaccio, in which the Modenese are spoken of with contempt.