The Lusiad describes
Vasco da Gama's voyage all the way round
Africa to
India, which was pretty clever, at least until they invented the
Suez Canal. Highly rated if you can read
Portuguese, but since that means you probably are Portuguese, or at least
Brazilian, we won't trust your judgement on grounds of bias.
Orlando Furioso is highly rated, about the crazy adventures during
the crusades of mad Orlando. It also features someone riding a
hippogriff to the moon, a hippogriff being 1/4 lion, 1/4 eagle and 1/2 horse, but not having any cow in the mix, it didn't
jump over said lunar object.
Paradise Lost contains some of the greatest poetry in
the English language, but is by and large totally unreadable. This is despite being one of the few epic poems based on a story anyone has ever heard, the early part of
Genesis. Milton was blind, long-winded and a
puritan, but also a campaigner for a
free press (about which he wrote
Areopagitica, possibly the best ever title for a pamphlet in defence of a free press, named for the hill where the
Athenian Supreme Court met,
Areopagos). Milton is most famous for being, according to
William Blake, a
satanist and thus a
poet*.
Alliterative names are always cool, and he sounds sort of like
Torquemada, boss of the
Spanish Inquisition. On the negative side, he was a big influence on
Edmund Spenser. Also big on
crusades.
In the entire 5 million years since our ancestors climbed down from the trees no one has ever read The Faerie Queene, not even Spenser, who left it unfinished. It is believed to be an
epic poem about the wonderfulness of
Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen (although it is not intended as a slight on her sexuality, the epithet "faerie" referring only to male homosexuals). It is written in
stanzas of 9 lines, about 8 more than most readers can manage.
Not a Renaissance poet, but the poet every
Renaissance epic poet wanted to be. He set an excellent
precedent by demanding his relatives destroy his
epic poem about the founding of
Rome. However, they in turn set a different kind of precedent by refusing his wishes.
*Not strictly true. "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true Poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it." The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake (admittedly words spoken by Satan, whose impartiality is in doubt).