"Egli s'innamoro del suo valore": Leone, Bradamante and Ruggiero in the 1532 Orlando Furioso

In a subtle, suggestive and widely cited article, "Il Soggetto del Furioso," Eduardo Saccone has observed that the subject of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso is "fede," or fidelity. ¹ I would like to trope on Saccone's observation in suggesting rather that fidelity is the Furioso's problem, fidelity, or the impossibility of fidelity, or what is even worse, the realization or awareness that fidelity in a far from perfect world is, as often as not, ideological enchantment. Nowhere is this more evident than in the demystification and parody of friendship that occurs in the Ruggiero-Leone-Bradamante episode. This episode is the last--and longest--of four major additions made to the Orlando Furioso between the poem's second edition, appearing in 1522, and the third edition, appearing in 1532. (The third edition was the last supervised by the poet, who would die in 1533, and it is taken to be the epic's definitive version.)

Central to my reading of the episode is Leone's declaration to Ruggiero of "voluntaria eterna servitute" (XLV:46,4). ² This vow, which may allude to a passage from Plato's Symposium, is far from the ideal display of courtesy it is often taken to be; rather, as I will argue below, it epitomizes Leone's dual infidelity, as a son to his father and as a prince to his empire. Significantly, this declaration parallels Bradamante's own proclamation of allegiance to her beloved (XLIV:63,1-2) and solicits a reciprocal oath from Ruggiero himself (XLV:48.4-8). These three vows, properly contextualized in the Ruggiero-Leone-Bradamante episode where they appear, exemplify opposing relationships to authority and fidelity, and provide the key to my reading of the 1532 Furioso's conclusion.

At the outset of canto 44 of the 1532 edition of the Orlando Furioso, the prophesied union of the characters Bradamante and Ruggiero seems near fulfillment. The two knights, whose progeny, according to the epic's inherited mythology, will rule Ferrara and ultimately provide Ariosto his patrons, are finally freed of other obligations and plot entanglements: Ruggiero has converted to Christianity, the Christians have defeated the Saracens, and Agramante, Ruggiero's lord and the king of the Saracens, is dead. By offering yet another iteration of Merlin's prophecy (III:10-62) regarding Bradamante and Ruggiero's glorious destiny, the very same hermit who has baptized Ruggiero persuades Rinaldo, Bradamante's brother, to give the warrior maid to Ruggiero in marriage. In the Orlando Furioso's first two versions, published in 1516 and 1522, Ruggiero and Bradamante are presumably married shortly after this point. Only the post-nuptial appearance of Rodomonte interrupts the felicitous closure of the poem. And, of course, this final interruption is itself felicitous, in that it enables Ariosto to echo the end of Virgil's Aeneid: Ruggiero dispatches Rodomonte just as Aeneas dispatches Turnus.

In the 1532 version of the poem, however, there is a complication to the resolution of the epic's marriage plot. Amone, Bradamante's father, while at court in Paris, has also promised Bradamante's hand, in this case to Leone, son of Constantine, Emperor of the Greeks. This union with the son of an emperor is more fitting to Bradamante's state, and would seem to be the politically and materially prudent one. From these two betrothals emerge a series of conflicts in allegiance, configured in terms of an opposition between courtesy and fidelity, or between opposing obligations of fidelity, dramatically represented in the persons of Ruggiero, Bradamante, and Leone. As we shall see, Ruggiero must navigate his conflicting duty to his beloved Bradamante and to his concept of honor that requires him to serve Leone after Leone saves his life. Bradamante must reconcile her duty to Ruggiero and to the god of Love, on the one hand, and to her parents on the other. And...