Converting Knights: A Semiotic Reading of Spiritual Change in Four Italian Chivalric Poems

Abstract

AbstractThis essay compares representations of religious conversion in four Italian chivalric poems: Luigi Pulci’s Morgante, Matteo Maria Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato, Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, and Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata. Semiotically read, they cast new light on the Catholic idea of the religious self in its development from the late Middle Ages throughout the early modern era. In this evolution, the Council of Trent represents a fundamental watershed.