Magic in Boiardo and Ariosto

189 Pages·1999·0.891 MB·English

by  Julia M. Kisacky

Magic in Boiardo
and Ariosto
Studies in Italian Culture
Literature in History
Aldo Scaglione
General Editor
Advisory Board
Peter Bondanella
Indiana University
Giuseppe Mazzotta
Yale University
Paolo Cherchi
University of Chicago
Vol. 25
PETER LANG
New York • Washington, D.C./Baltimore (cid:127) Boston (cid:127) Bern
Frankfurt am Main (cid:127) Berlin (cid:127) Brussels (cid:127) Vienna (cid:127) Oxford
Julia M. Kisacky
Magic in Boiardo
and Ariosto
PETER LANG
New York (cid:127) Washington, D.C./Baltimore (cid:127) Boston (cid:127) Bern
Frankfurt am Main (cid:127) Berlin (cid:127) Brussels (cid:127) Vienna (cid:127) Oxford
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kisacky, Julia M.
Magic in Boiardo and Ariosto / Julia M. Kisacky.
p. cm. — (Studies in Italian culture—Literature in history; vol. 25)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Boiardo, Matteo Maria, 1440– or 41–1494. Orlando innamorato.
2. Ariosto, Lodovico, 1474–1533. Orlando furioso. 3. Magic in literature.
4. Roland (Legendary character)—Romances—History and criticism.
5. Romances, Italian—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series.
PQ4614.K57 851’.209—dc21 98-30521
ISBN 0-8204-4252-6
ISSN 1043-5794
Die Deutsche Bibliothek-CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Kisacky, Julia M.:
Magic in Boiardo and Ariosto / Julia M. Kisacky.
−New York; Washington, D.C./Baltimore; Boston; Bern;
Frankfurt am Main; Berlin; Brussels; Vienna; Oxford: Lang.
(Studies in Italian culture; Vol. 25)
ISBN 0-8204-4252-6
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity
of the Council of Library Resources.
© 2000 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York
All rights reserved.
Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.
Printed in the United States of America

Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter One Boiardo’s Marvelous Artifacts 7
Chapter Two Boiardo’s Monsters and Mages 33
Supernatural Creatures 33
Practitioners of Magic 41
Chapter Three Ariosto’s Marvelous Artifacts 55
Magic Artifacts 55
Prophetic Works of Art 82
Chapter Four Ariosto’s Supernatural Creatures 89
Animals and Monsters 89
Villains 101
Chapter Five Ariosto’s Practitioners of Magic 105
Fays 105
Sorcerers 113
Miracle-Workers 124
Conclusion 137
Notes 141
Bibliography 155
Index 183

Acknowledgements
This work started out as my dissertation, and I wish to thank my readers
at Rutgers University: Guido Guarino, David Marsh, Adolf Snaidas, and
especially my adviser, Laura Sanguineti White. Many thanks also to Mrs.
Carol Feinberg for her help during my years in graduate school.
I owe a great deal to my colleagues Bruce and Jessica Watson, and
Alden Smith, for their encouragement of my scholarly endeavors. Special
thanks go to D. Thomas Hanks, for his advice about the manuscript.
I gratefully acknowledge the support of Baylor University. In revising
this study I have used material I read at the Biblioteca ariostea in Ferrara
in the summer of 1998 with the help of a grant from the University
Research Council. I also thank Dean Wallace Daniel of the College of
Arts and Sciences for his generous support of the publication of this
book.
I thank the publishers for permission to use the following material:
parts of Chapters One and Two have appeared in different form in “Magic
and Enchanted Armaments: Moral Considerations in Boiardo and Ariosto,”
Forum Italicum 30 (1996); and “Chaos and Order: Magical and Anti-
magical Books in Boiardo and Ariosto,” Romance Languages Annual 8
(1996). Part of my article, “Conversion and Subversion in Boiardo’s Or-
lando innamorato,” Romance Languages Annual 10 (1998) appears in
somewhat different form in Chapter Two.
I thank Charles Ross for permission to use his translation of the Or-
lando innamorato (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and
the publisher for permission to use Guido Waldman’s translation of the
Orlando furioso (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983).

Introduction
The concept of magic has existed since prehistoric times, and throughout
recorded history. People’s ideas about magic have varied from time to
time and from place to place, from Egyptian funeral ceremonies, to Greek
enchantresses, to Roman tales of wicked witches, to the summoning of
demons in medieval chivalric literature, and more. This book is my at-
tempt at a global study of the element of magic in two Italian Renaissance
epic poems, Matteo Maria Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato, and Ludovico
Ariosto’s Orlando furioso. In both of these works, magic is a crucial and
pervasive element.
The long and illustrious history of the topos of magic in literature offers
many possible influences on Boiardo’s and Ariosto’s treatment of it. Clas-
sical epics from Homer on had made use of magic, and throughout the
medieval romance tradition magic became increasingly important.1 As
learned court poets, Boiardo and Ariosto were well-acquainted with Latin
poetry, and had some familiarity with Greek literature. As expected of
good Humanists, both poets borrowed from the Classical tradition, with,
however, each poet adapting his sources to his own needs in his indi-
vidual manner.
Many critics have held a negative view of Boiardo’s relation to his
sources. According to Reichenbach, Boiardo was always “infedelissimo”
to his sources because he always added his own touch.2 For Bruscagli,
Boiardo’s literary references shed some light on his text, but his radical
destructuring of the references gives the impression that his world lacks a
literary memory; centaurs may be present, but without their Classical
history.3 Boiardo’s siren may recall the Classical tradition, but in essence
she is very different from Homer’s singers.4 Looney suggests that Boiardo’s
intended audience was a decisive factor in this de-emphasis of his allu-
sions: “Boiardo . . . was uncomfortable . . . with making his classicism too
apparent in the Innamorato, his one poem most designed for public
2 Introduction

consumption.”5 In contrast, Zampese sees Boiardo as “un letterato colto
e sensibile, capace di valersi in modo originale delle proprie fonti,” and
emphasizes his “consapevole organizzazione di materiali selezionati con
fini significativi.”6
Il mondo del Boiardo si appoggia largamente sulla memoria letteraria; ma il
rapporto del poeta con la tradizione non è improntata . . . a criteri di aderente
fedeltà. . . . il Boiardo attua sui propri materiali quegli interventi che gli dettano le
esigenze di un gusto personale, spesso volto a creare effetti di dismisura e di
comicità; ma è anche vero che la rielaborazione della fonte è assai frequentemente
operata attraverso una consapevole contaminazione con altri e diversi reperti
letterari, capaci di modificare il tono e il significato della struttura principale7
Ariosto’s Classical references are apt to be more true to the originals, yet
still they will be changed in some way to suit his purpose. For example,
Medoro is the counterpart of the Virgilian Euryalus, but it is Dardinello
who dies Euryalus’ death.8
Both the Innamorato and the Furioso are set in the world of medieval
chivalric romance, and Pio Rajna has shown the debt, as far as plot goes,
of the Furioso to preceding exemplars of this genre.9 The topoi of love
and adventure had gradually through the years crept into the lives of
Charlemagne’s knights, until Boiardo achieved an inseparable fusion of
the Carolingian and Arthurian cycles in his poetic world.10 Although his
characters have the names and outward appearances of Charlemagne’s
knights, their main interests are love and adventure, themes characteristic
of the Arthurian cycle. The two worlds have truly been merged, so that
Merlin’s artifacts can be found scattered here and there for wandering
knights to find. An obvious example is the fountain of disamore, origi-
nally intended as a magical remedy for Tristan, which ends up complicat-
ing the life of Ranaldo.
Other influences on the poets’ treatment of magic may have included
the contemporary practice of “low” magic, e.g. fortune-telling and con-
juring with devils, and the “high” magic of Renaissance Hermeticism,
which sought to reveal the cosmos’ veiled meanings. As to the former, it
is unclear whether or not Boiardo believed in magic in real life. At the
time, astrology was highly fashionable, and Boiardo was respectful of the
belief, even equating the presence of astrologers with civilization (OI
2.22.32). His most important astrologer character, the king of Garamanta,
is as knowledgeable as he portrays himself, but Boiardo also refers to a
deceitful astrologer in the intaglio of Alexander the Great in the first canto
of Book 2. Ariosto, on the other hand, makes mocking references to the
credulity of contemporaries who trust in “le magiche sciocchezze.” In OF
Introduction 3

7.73 and 33.5 he explicitly denies the existence of magic in contempo-
rary times. In the Negromante, Ariosto portrays the title character as a
self-seeking fake whose chance of success depends wholly on his ability
to deceive his gullible victims about his supposedly immense magical pow-
ers. Iachelino ultimately fails because of the machinations of the clever
servant Temolo who reveals his plots.
Neither Boiardo nor Ariosto was strongly influenced by the teachings
of Hermeticism. Their mages are certainly not the higher beings that Pico
della Mirandola described in De hominis dignitate; rather, they are as
fallible as the knights and ladies who lack magical abilities. Neither are the
poets bound by Pico’s distinction between good magic, concerned with
divine matters, and evil magic involving demons.11 In both poems the
Christian mages employ demons, including Melissa who makes them serve
God’s cause.
The Ferrarese poets’ situations at the Este court also influenced their
works. The medieval romance genre was especially valued at the Este
court. The Po valley and Veneto areas had been a center of interest in the
romances since the twelfth century, and the fashion had developed of
naming children after characters from the Arthurian and Carolingian ro-
mances,12 a fashion which lasted even up to the days of Meliaduse, the
brother of Leonello and Borso. Duke Borso claimed to derive greater
pleasure from a French romance new to his library than from the acquisi-
tion of a new city.13 With so much audience demand it is not surprising
that after a brief period of Florentine predominance the center of chivalric
poetry shifted to Ferrara.
Due to the unusually strong control exercised by the Este family, Ferrara
did not develop into a comune as most northern Italian cities did. It re-
mained a signoria, and consequently the attitude about chivalry was dif-
ferent from that found elsewhere. The Este rulers consciously used tradi-
tional chivalric teachings as propaganda to promote loyalty among their
vassals.14
Even by Boiardo’s era the system of chivalry could not be seen as
closely related to reality. Yet in Ferrara chivalric ideals could still be re-
vered, unlike the more mocking attitude of the bourgeois Florentines typi-
fied by Pulci. Boiardo truly venerated the knightly ideals, as shown for
example in his sonnet 44 “Ocio amoroso e cura giovenile.” Reichenbach
praises his “capacità di esprimere il mondo cavalleresco ch’era l’anima
della sua anima.”15 This sincere participation on the poet’s part did not,
however, protect his characters from being placed in comical situations
due to their quests for love and adventure. Nor did Boiardo’s recognition
4 Introduction

of true chivalric values at the court in Ferrara16 preclude glimpses of less
lovely aspects of court life gleaned from his own experience.17
Ariosto’s attitude is more complex and contradictory; he values some
of the chivalric ideals, such as fede, but portrays them in a more modern
and more problematized manner, in shades of gray rather than black and
white. With the increasing removal of chivalry from its origins it could
only seem more and more antiquated and detached from reality, contrib-
uting to Ariosto’s ironic attitude toward it. This irony, which to Francesco
De Sanctis indicated a corrosive intent,18 seems less harsh to other critics.19
The Este lords’ personal foibles as patrons directly affected their poets,
who were functionaries of the court as well as artists. The Este promoted
an image of themselves as protectors of the arts, but they expected to
receive practical services from their poets and not just “opera
d’inchiostro.”20 Boiardo’s duties as governor of Modena and Reggio prob-
ably contributed to the drastically reduced speed of composition of Book
3 of the Innamorato.21 Ariosto’s sufferings due to the demands and in-
gratitude of Cardinal Ippolito are well known from his first Satire. Later,
with Alfonso as his patron, his situation was somewhat improved.
Leaving aside the complicated question of genre, both the Innamorato
and the Furioso have the romance tendency to be open-ended, to go on
indefinitely.22 Boiardo pays as much attention to “minor” episodes as he
does to main lines of the plot. Each episode becomes the focus until it is
concluded, and then the characters seek another adventure (and there are
always other adventures, whether magical, martial, or romantic). Besides
reflecting the knightly spirit of adventure and prolonging the diletto of
the audience, these diversions obviously defer the conclusion of the poem.
The Innamorato gives the impression that Boiardo did not know how to
bring his story to a close, and that its ending was more imposed on him
than by him.23 Antonio Franceschetti argues that the poem’s “disorganicità
formale” is intentional, pointing to other masterpieces of the Quattrocento,
such as the Stanze and the Morgante, which share the Innamorato’s lack
of formal organization, yet nevertheless contain their essential message;
later the prevalence of the rule of classical harmony will make this
impossible.24
Ariosto, on the other hand, planned out the Furioso with the determi-
nation of bringing the poem to a definite conclusion, and firmly squelched
the temptation to go on.25 With exceptional control of his huge mass of
material he managed the feat, overcoming the tendency toward deferral
of the ending and bringing together the wildly divergent paths of the
apparently unruly characters. In the Furioso this struggle against an end-
ing is reflected notably by the mage Atlante’s struggle against fate.26