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

"This is a valuable book on perhaps the two most important romance epics of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Continuing from her fascinating previous study, Jo Ann Cavallo introduces an international and geographic perspective to uncover the ideology behind Ariosto's rewriting of Boiardo's plots. A book like this, which goes into patient detail, is crucial for scholars in other fields who might be unfamiliar with the discussed texts and need to be guided. Its research is state-of-the-art, and it is well deserving of the prestigious Scaglione Prize." -- Charles S. Ross, Professor, Department of English, and Chair, Comparative Literature Program, Purdue University "This book examines the presentation of the non-Christian world in two fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian romance/chivalric epics, a very topical field in research. It will make an important contribution to a very active debate on the presentation of the 'other' and the Saracen and Muslim worlds in Italian literature." -- Jane E. Everson, Professor, School of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Royal Holloway, University of London

“This articulate, engaging, and well-documented study represents an important work of scholarship in its cross-cultural considerations of Italian Renaissance epic poetry.”
Prize Committtee Citation, MLA Scaglione Priize for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies

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.”