Ruggiero and Leone: Revision and Resolution in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso

Abstract

Of the revisions made in the third and final edition of the Orlando Furioso (1532), the episode of Ruggiero and Leone is Ariosto's lengthiest addition (XLIV, 12-XLVI, 78). Its apparent purpose is to prepare the reader for the final scene of the wedding of Ruggiero and Bradamante, and by delaying the end of the poem, it should heighten the sense of resolution at the very end. Yet many critics have criticized the episode as monotonous and obtrusive, and have felt that the poet's powers were waning.' I believe that the Ruggiero-Leone episode serves three important functions in concluding Ariosto's poem. First, it recalls and recapitulates the initial encounter of Rugiero and Bradamante in Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato (III, iv-v), thereby reinforcing the sense that Ariosto is completing Boiardo's poem. Second, the episode supplies a demonstration of cortesia in the figure of Ruggiero which qualifies him for the hand of Bradamante. Third, the conflict of Trojan descendants and Byzantine Greeks, represented by Ruggiero and Leone, connects Ariosto's poem with classical epic at an ethical, Homeric level and at a historical, Virgilian level. I. In Boiardo's poem, Rugiero and Bradamante meet in the third book (III, iv-v), and the incompleteness of the Innamorato, which breaks off soon thereafter, is more abrupt because it fails to narrate their marriage and the establishment of the Este line. In his first edition of the Furioso, Ariosto drew upon this episode for his description of the wedding canopy (XLVI, 81-97), which recapitulates the Trojan lineage that Boiardo's Rugiero unfolds to Bradamante in the Innamorato encounter (II, v, 18-31). In his third edition, Ariosto's Ruggiero-Leone episode recalls further features of the encounter in Boiardo. In Boiardo, Rugiero is initially impressed by the prowess of an unknown knight (Bradamante) whom he observes from a hilltop (OI, III, iv, 51-52). In Ariosto, the Greek prince Leone is similarly