At the Threshold of Renaissance Comedy: This essay presents four of Ludovico Ariosto's prologues translated into Danish for the first time: the prologues to the prose versions of La Cassaria (1508) and I Suppositi (1509), the first prologue to La Lena (1528) and the second Prologue to Il Negromante (1528). Situating the prologues in their context of Court life in Ferrara and the rising interest in scenography which followed Alberti's interpretations of Vitruvius, the essay discusses the main themes of the prologues, the references to scenography and the relationship between play and spectator, focussing also on the problems of a new comic language in the vernacular and its relations to Ariosto's ideals of a literary 'volgare', based on the ideas of Bembo.