Ariostois Threshold Patron: Isabella diEste in the Orlando Furioso

Isabella d'Este makes three significant appearances in Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso.¹ It has always been assumed that all three are completely laudatory, the result of a particularly amicable relationship between Ariosto and Isabella, dating to a visit to Mantua in 1507 during which Ariosto entertained the marchesa with readings from early fragments of the poem. The delighted Isabella immediately wrote to her brother, Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, Ariosto's nominal patron, to report how much she had enjoyed the poem and the poet, and a friendly relationship appears to have been sealed.² Ariosto sent copies of the various editions of the poem to Isabella as gifts, and the two enjoyed a lengthy and friendly correspondence. Given Isabella's well-known penchant for gathering artists of all kinds around her and fostering their efforts, and given the proximity both physically and politically of the Mantuan court of Isabella to the Ferrarese where Ariosto worked, it is clear why Ariosto would have nurtured this relationship. If not expressive of genuine respect and affection, the few stanzas devoted to Isabella d'Este might be presumed to be at worst outrageous flattery, intended to win the favor of the marchesa.

Yet what was required to win the favor of a marchesa is precisely the issue which these passages about Isabella d'Este address. Ariosto's own patronage situation was, at least at the first publication of the Orlando Furioso, not secure, and he was operating in a courtly economy where winning patronage was often directly related to writings dedicated to powerful figures. In the courts of Ferrara and Mantua in particular a number of female patrons, including Isabella d'Este, offered an opportunity for advancement, largely because their perpetually vulnerable social position, and the rigid expectations held for their behavior, put them in constant need of praise. Ariosto's consideration of Isabella d'Este functions both as an enactment of that system and an indictment of it. Because Ariosto's own position, and that of his peers, was as vulnerable as that of the noble ladies, one can find hints of identification with these women, in particular with the figure of Isabella d'Este.³ But by the same token Ariosto was aware of the power both that the female patron held over him, in economic terms, and of that which he held over her by his control of the public perception of her virtues. The tension between these last two factors, when read through the lens of the contemporary transmission of treatises and poems, and the terms of patronage within the Mantuan and Ferrarese courts, yields a portrait of Isabella d'Este as an ambiguous and unresolved figure in Ariosto's pantheon of contemporary characters. I will argue that she is, within the Orlando Furioso, a figure of the vulnerable female patron. Where for the court lady chastity was the inevitable term of identity, for the court poet that term is flattery, endlessly produced in an effort to improve the author's standing. Writing itself is therefore the subject of Ariosto's description of Isabella d'Este.

Ariosto's position at the Este court was never entirely secure, and never exclusively literary. Though he spent his years there attempting to establish a position as remunerated court poet, he was used more consistently for diplomacy, to his enormous resentment.⁴ His role at court from 1503 consisted almost entirely of diplomatic missions, most frequently to Rome. In 1517 Ippolito released Ariosto from his service for refusing to accompany the Cardinalacy to Hungary, where Ippolito had been assigned. Ippolito also cancelled the bulk of his benefices, with which Ariosto had been remunerated in place of a court stipend. Alfonso d'Este assumed Ariosto's patronage in Ippolito's place, asking him to read aloud to him more than to write, but even this position was cancelled in 1520 due to...