Matteo Maria Boiardo

1441-1494

He was associated at various periods of his life with the Este court at Ferrara, serving from 1480 to 1492 as Ercole d'Este's representative in the city of Modena, and from 1487 until his death as governor of Reggio. His literary fame rests on an influential collection of love poems, the Amorum libri tres or Canzoniere, which are noteworthy examples of Petrarchan lyrics of courtly elegance, and on the most significant chivalric romance of the fifteenth century, the Orlando Innamorato, which, left unfinished at the poet's death, served as the starting point for the composition of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, completed early in the following century.

Traditionally, Boiardo has been credited with having realized in his lengthy poem (three books totaling sixty-nine cantos) a fusion of Carolingian epic tradition and the matière de Bretagne, creating thereby a unique Italian genre. Though in truth such a fusion occurs in works predating the Orlando Innamorato, Boiardo's poem, in its reflection of the culture and ideals of Italian Rennaissance court life during the golden age of Este patronage, is the first masterpiece of the Italian romance genre and the earliest to manifest a sophisticated use of such narrative techniques as interlace. It is well known that Ferrara and similar northern Italian courts were fascinated by medieval epic traditions and that the Este library contained numerous Arthurian romance familiar to Boiardo and other courtiers.

Boiardo's work continued and developed the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century cantari tradition and also served the literary and aesthetic tastes of a court audience. The framework of the poem is essentially Carolingian, recounting the struggle of the Christian forces of Charlemagne with those of the pagan Agramante. However, the focus of the romance is on the Arthurian elements, including the innumerable fantastic adventures of knights-errant, magic fountains and enchanted forests, and particularly love, which has frequently been seen as the motive force behind a highly energized series of complex episodes, commencing with that of the hero-protagonist, Orlando.

A transformation of the French Roland, Orlando becomes a victim of the ineluctable forces of love, represented by Angelica, the daughter of the King of Cathay, sent to undermine the valor of the Christian armies. Boiardo borrows episodes, locales, and characters from Arthurian tradition, transforming them into a tapestry of courtly elegance and sensibility with a markedly international Gothic flavor.