The World Beyond Europe in the Romance Epics of Boiardo and Ariosto

Description

This study offers a sustained examination of the presentation of eastern Asia, the Middle East, and northern Africa in two of the most important chivalric epics of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Matteo Maria Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato (1495) and Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1516). Comparing the narratological strategies used to depict non-European characters in these stories, Jo Ann Cavallo argues that Boiardo’s cosmopolitan vision of humankind increasingly became replaced by Ariosto’s crusading ideology, which emphasized a binary opposition between Christians and Saracens. Cavallo addresses the poems’ mixing of imaginary sites and the geographical reality of a rapidly expanding globe, contextualizing them against current events and concerns, as well as ancient, medieval, and Renaissance texts influential at the time. As the prize committee for the Scaglione Publication Award for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies noted: “This articulate, engaging, and well-documented study represents an important work of scholarship in its cross-cultural considerations of Italian Renaissance epic poetry.” Cover Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part One: Asia 1 Angelica of Cathay 2 Gradasso of Sericana 3 Agricane of Tartary 4 Mandricardo, Son of Agricane 5 Marphisa, Eastern Queen Part Two: Out of Africa 6 Agramante of Biserta (Tunisia) 7 Rugiero (Atlas Mountains, Northern Africa) 8 Rodamonte of Sarza (Algeria) 9 Saracen Spain Part Three: The Middle East 10 Boiardo’s Noradino in Cyprus 11 Egypt: From Damietta to Cairo 12 Jerusalem 13 Ariosto’s Norandino in Damascus Part Four: Back to Africa 14 From Ethiopia to the Moon 15 The Destruction of Biserta Part Five: From Cosmopolitanism to Isolationism 16 Boiardo’s Brandimarte across the Continents 17 Ariosto’s Rinaldo along the Po River Conclusion Names and Origins of Fictional Characters Notes Works Cited Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z