The eloquence of Sannazzaro is that of the Arcadian the world over.

He sighs and weeps and calls upon dryads, hamadryads and oreads to pity his consuming passion.

When he sees his mistress she is walking in the midst of pastoral scenes where satyrs lurk behind every bush and the song of the shepherd is heard in the land.

Sannazzaro's "Arcadia" was the inspiration of Sir Philip Sidney's.

It was a natural outburst of the time and it conveys perfectly the spirit of Italian imaginative thought in a period almost baffling in the complexity of its character.
It was not strange that in such a time Italian poets should have discerned in Orpheus the embodiment of their own ideals.