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

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

by Jo Ann Cavallo

Published by: University of Toronto Press

Series: Toronto Italian Studies

Imprint: University of Toronto Press

Digital download
9781442666665
Published: October 2013

Digital download
9781442666672
Published: October 2013

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise
Awards

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.”

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

Notes

Names and origins of fictional characters

Works Cited

Index

Jo Ann Cavallo is a professor in the Department of Italian at Columbia University.

‘Cavallo offers a thoroughly researched examination of the literary sources that shaped Boiardo’s narrative and Ariosto’s interpretation of the material… This is an incredibly rich and rigorous study of Boiardo’s literary world.’
~Andrea Rizzi, Parergon vol 32:01:2015

‘This is an excellent study with well-crafted narratives, replete with insights and detailed analysis… This book should appeal not only to Italianists but also to scholars interested in the debate on late medieval and early modern cultural encounters.’
~Giorgos Plakotos, Sixteenth Century Journal vol 46:03:2015

‘The World beyond Europe invites scholars of Italian literature to expand our spatial and cultural horizons by offering a model of original thinking and syncretic knowledge.’
~Maria Galli Stampino, Italica vol 92:04:2015

‘Cavallo provides a detailed and fascinating account of how a non-Christian space was represented both in the romance epic tradition and more generally in early modern Italian culture.’
~Juliann Vitullo, Annali D’Italianistica vol 35:2016

‘This engagingly written book is indispensable not only for Italianists but for students and scholars of romance and epic and any other literature of the European West.’
~Goran Stanivukovic, Renaissance & Reformation, vol 40:01:2017

Scaglione Publication Award - Modern Language Association (2013) - Winner