Early Modern Society Research Articles

The Histrionics of Warrior Masculinity in <i>1 & 2 Tamburlaine</i> (1587)

This essay analyses the histrionics of warrior masculinity in 1 & 2 Tamburlaine in light of the social, political and technological shifts that transformed warfare in early modern England. It first looks at the contexts of these shifts and how they necessitated new models of masculinity in keeping with early modern civil society. The prospective elimination of the nobility’s warrior masculinity caused great anxieties about the foothold of masculinity in society more generally, which became a major subject of discussion in public discourse at the time. The early modern theatre, with its particular function in formulating topical issues and discussing questions about identities, staged the anxiety about effeminacy brought about by the demise of pre-modern warriorship. This essay, however, proposes that English Renaissance drama of war mediates the transition of the model manhood from that of martialism to that of civility. It argues that Christopher Marlowe’s 1 & 2 Tamburlaine, as a famous play centering on war and conquest, engages in such mediation through the hyperbolic characterisation of the pre-modern warrior. By doing so, it renders such a figure unhuman and thereby unviable in early modern society. The essay further analyses how the dramaturgy of the plays estranges the audience from the figure of pre-modern warrior and discredits its legitimacy.

Introduction: Exile and Innovation☆

AbstractThe early modern period was an age marked by the forced migration and displacement of social groups and individuals around the world. Huguenots, conversos, Catholics, cavaliers, Jacobites, and French emigrés alike fled or were expelled from their homes and communities. Yet, exile is still usually considered only within the context of broader religious or political events by scholars working in sub‐fields rather than as a phenomenon worthy of study in its own right. Foregrounding displacement as a major facet of early modern society and culture, this special issue explores the experience, perception, and poetics of exile from 1500 to 1800 through the prism of innovation. It encompasses displaced individuals and communities, as well as writings that treat the theme of exile, to consider how forced migration shaped the social, cultural, political, and intellectual contours of the era – and thus led to innovative practices and ideas.

Slavery, Mobility, and Identity on the Western Coast of India, Sixteenth–Eighteenth Centuries

AbstractIn the wake of the establishment of the Portuguese in the region, slavery was fundamentally constitutive of early modern society on the west coast of India. While indigenous hierarchies and existing systems of slavery shaped Portuguese slavery, over time, indigenous society too was transformed by the extensive reliance on enslaved labor facilitated by European trafficking networks. Centering slavery in the study of South Asian history underscores the importance of considering the difference between elite projects of enforcing boundaries, both spatial and social, and the ways in which enslaved people negotiated these projects. Thus, instead of taking for granted the classificatory labels of race, caste, and blackness imposed upon enslaved peoples by elite institutions, a social history of slavery elucidates instead the evolution of these mechanisms for policing identity, and the centrality of the expropriation of labor in identity formation.

On the fringes of empire? Rethinking suburbs as colonial spaces in early modern South and Southeast Asia

Abstract This survey challenges conventional perceptions of colonial suburbs in the early modern Indian Ocean world in general, and those under the rule of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in particular. Recent urban research advocates re-evaluating suburbs as intricate and diverse spaces, yet this shift has had limited impact on historical studies of early modern colonialism. The survey highlights the importance of recognizing suburban regions in eighteenth-century settlements such as Cape Town, Cochin, Colombo or Batavia, where significant population growth resulted from inter-Asian and internal migration. These areas fostered ethnic and cultural diversity, disrupting normative ideas of segregation. By shifting the analytical focus from the core to the periphery and exploring colonial histories from an outside-in perspective, the contribution emphasizes the potential of a more horizontal approach to sub/urbanity for understanding early modern colonial societies, encouraging scholars to delve into the intersection of ‘the imperial’ and ‘the urban’.

In Search for Alternatives to German Domination: The Construction of the Maritime Past in Latvian and Lithuanian National Historiography

In the first half of the 20th century, all the states that emerged on the east coast of the Baltic gained access to the sea. Each tried to utilise this to strengthen their economies, but contemporaries had different views on their potential to do so. One example is that the Latvians were labelled as a maritime nation, while the Lithuanians were portrayed as a “continental” nation. This is sometimes still the case today. The research presented in this article shows that despite this judgement, the need to create images of the maritime past of the Latvian and Lithuanian nations manifested in both cases through the historiography that influenced modern national identities. The article focuses on the different representations of the maritime past used by the Latvian and Lithuanian national movements in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century and examines the origins of these representations as well as the contexts in which they were instrumentalised. The research shows that although the images were different, Lithuanian and Latvian historians used similar strategies to create and disseminate them. These included retrospective identification with mediaeval and early modern societies and attempts to use images of the maritime past to find alternatives to German domination in the region.

Images as a Hint to the Other World: The Use of Images as Mediators in Medieval and Early Modern Societies

The Middle Ages and Early Modern periods saw the interpretation of reality through symbols, connecting the natural world to the divine using symbolic thinking and images. The idea of a correspondence between the human and universal macrocosm was prominent in various fields such as medicine, philosophy, and religion. Symbolism played a crucial role in approaching divine matters, with symbols serving as a means of direct presence and embodiment. Plato’s influence on Neoplatonist and Hermetic thinkers emphasized the role of dreams and eidola (images) for interpreting the divine. Contemplation of art and nature was an epistemological tool, seeking hidden cosmic harmony and understanding. Christianity embraced worshiping images as representations of the divine, granting believers a way to understand religious concepts. Icons were considered mirrors reflecting the spiritual and divine aspects. The medieval concept of speculum books as mirrors containing all knowledge offered instructional and subjective insights on various subjects. Speculum humanae salvationis illuminated books demonstrated the interplay between the Old and New Testaments, influencing artists like Rogier van der Weyden.

Prawo jako dar i dar wzajemny monarchy w Wielkim Księstwie Litewskim (na przykładzie przywileju ogólnoziemskiego z 1447 r.)

The article analyzes the concept of “gift”, which is considered in the categories of mentality, through the concept of “legal consensus”, using the preamble of the common noble privilege of Casimir in 1447 as an example. The study combines diplomatic, semantic and structural anthropological approaches to read and interpret the legal act. The “gift” is considered as an element of the common language between the ruler and the subjects of the GDL. The terms “donatio” and “recompensatio” are analyzed in detail. The preamble of the common noble privilege justifies the granting of noble rights by the monarch as a reward for the gifts of his lordship (“доброты, ласкы и дары”/“bono, graciarum et libertatum”). The anthropological understanding of the phenomenon of “gift” as a phenomenon of the customary culture of the late medieval and early modern society of the GDL becomes important. Some issues of translation of latin legal monuments into ruthenian are considered.

Connecting Historic Graffiti to Past Parishes and Beliefs

Historic graffiti offer new and interesting insights into late medieval and early modern English society. This paper will show the value of studying these inscriptions by discussing two churches constructed in the late medieval period in Suffolk, England, with drawings of two figures that potentially represent the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child. These drawings are similar and yet quite different in their quality and execution, and they possibly relate to lost medieval imagery within the building. These images may also have been created in response to various iconoclastic movements that occurred as part of the Reformation as well as after it. This paper seeks to encourage further study on the relationship between historic graffiti and local history by observing the connection between the late medieval parish churches of Lidgate and Stradishall and their respective figural drawings by suggesting that graffiti serve a larger purpose than idle drawing or doodling and instead are valuable pieces of evidence about parish life and values.

Early Modern Imaginations of the Nation and Their Insights: An Examination Centered on Liang Qichao and Liang Shuming

Chinese people have formed a rich vision of the “nation,” with Liang Qichao and Liang Shuming serving as representative figures, throughout the process of moving from “all under heaven” to “nation.” The two Liangs’ imaginations show different traits as well as consistency. The two Liangs’ modern national imaginations stand out for their interaction between “people” and “country” in terms of imaginative features. Regarding continuity, Liang Shuming’s rural building movement may be understood as the application of Liang Qichao’s theoretical vision. Nonetheless, the opposition faced by the rural building movement highlights the challenges this imagination has in attempting to come to pass. In light of the ‘national’ imagination and associated practices of early modern Chinese society, what becomes clear is that, against the backdrop of historical transitions, an idealistic national imagination can, in fact, serve as a conceptual basis for national construction as well as an uplifting and guiding force. However, the challenge and secret to creating a modern nation is understanding how to organize the “people” to forge a concrete bond with the “country.” Examining and considering these ideas and actual initiatives is still very significant for nation-building in the modern day.

Swedish income inequality in 1613

AbstractIn this paper we present the first estimate of the full income distribution in pre‐industrial Sweden (including present‐day Finland). We draw on the schedule and the individual assessments devised by the authorities to distribute the 1613 Älvsborg ransom taxation to estimate income inequality, as well as the income shares of the top quantiles and of various social groups. We find that Sweden was relatively equal compared with other early modern European societies, for two main reasons: first, because the nobility, the clergy, the burghers, and other middle‐rank social groups all held relatively small shares of the total income, and second, because the landless groups were less numerous in Sweden than in other societies. This resulted in a large share of the total income going to the relatively homogeneous group of landed peasants, who made up the majority of the population. Our study thus speaks to the political historiography of early modern Sweden, within which negotiation and collaboration between the landed peasantry and the state has been seen as pivotal to the state formation process.

Соціум Гетьманщини 18 століття у світлі новітніх вітчизняних досліджень

The purpose of the article is to analyze the monographic publications of domestic scientists devoted to the study of the society of the Hetmanate of the 18th century. The main directions of the development of this topic are highlighted, the methodology is clarified, and further prospects for the study of the topic are outlined. Research methodology. The monographic publications subject to analysis were published after 2010, which ensured novelty and made it possible to trace the latest trends and research directions of Ukrainian early modern society. When studying them, the main attention was focused on the topic, the structure of research and the search methods used in it. The reviewed editions were divided into groups depending on the subject covered in them. A comparison of the concepts of functioning of early modern society proposed by domestic authors with those that function in Western historiography is carried out. Scientific novelty. It has been established that the main areas of study of the Hetman region's society are: social phenomena and processes among the urban and rural population, analysis of age, professional, status groups, peculiarities of the functioning of social institutions, and the specifics of the perception of certain phenomena by the contemporary society. An overview of the methods used in the works makes it possible to state that a significant number of scientists approach the study of society from a historical-demographic perspective, widely using quantitative methods to demonstrate the situation that has developed in society and show the main trends of its development. At the same time, under the influence of the Western trend of "cultural history of the social", considerable attention is paid in the reviewed studies to the mutual influence of social and cultural factors. Conclusions. It is noted that the society of the Hetmanate of the 18th century needs further study. In particular, certain social groups remain poorly researched from the point of view of historical demography. This makes it difficult to write comprehensive works on the social history of the Hetmanate. Noting the importance of works on the study of childhood or death in early modern Ukraine, we note that many age, gender, physiological, and cultural phenomena of social life remain unexplored.

Вживання алкоголю в суспільстві Гетьманщини ХVІІІ ст. як маркер якості життя

The purpose of the article is to study the culture of alcohol consumption in the Hetmanate of the 18th century as a marker of quality of life. The author analyzed the diaries of Cossack elders and the epistolary heritage of this period, singled out references to the use of alcoholic beverages, circumstances, cases of abuse. The research methodology is determined by the purpose and features of the main sources and, in addition to the application of general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis), involves the use of a microhistorical approach, elements of prosopography and social history. Since it is primarily about the analysis of diaries, the theoretical work of the French researcher Philippe Lejeune was applied, who examined the development of diaries from the "accounting of the past" to emotional notes. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that alcohol consumption is not considered as a bad habit or a certain branch of the economy, but as a component of a person's leisure behavior, the realization of undesirable needs, which also determined the quality of life. It was concluded that from the point of view of traditional markers of quality, Ukrainian early modern society was quite homogeneous (life expectancy, mortality, diseases). Even the diet of the common people and the elite was often similar. But the consumption of alcoholic beverages was just one of those markers that at the everyday level testified to a higher or lower level of well-being. But their consumer culture was significantly different. Precisely from the point of view of alcohol consumption - frequency, volume, and its assortment, one can observe the difference in everyday life and its quality. Belonging to a higher social status and financial resources provided access to higher quality alcohol and higher quality of its consumption. At the same time, the Cossack elder of the Hetmanate had access to alcohol produced in different countries and corresponding to the lifestyle of the European nobility of that time. In this way, the "precious" people of old Ukraine were similar to the European establishment.

Experiencing Intrusion: Smashed Windows as Violations of Privacy in the University Town of Helmstedt, 1684–1706

This article argues that much of what we refer to as privacy in present-day society was materialised, experienced, instrumentalised, and also, to some extent, protected before the 19th century, when it was broadly conceptualised as a value and a right. In a social-architectural approach, windows and facades of the private house are shown to have had an important regulatory function, mediating between the house and the neighbourhood, the open and the closed, and the public and the private. First ,we extract evidence from On the Art of Building in Ten Books by Leon Battista Alberti (1404– 1572) as well as from other architectural treatises of the period and region, in particular those by Joseph Furttenbach (1591–1667) and Leonhard Christoph Sturm (1669–1719), who cites Nicolaus Goldmann (1611–1665). Then, we combine the architectural insights with an in-depth reading of two well-documented but not yet analysed court cases of nocturnal window smashing in the university town of Helmstedt involving Professor Johann Barthold Niemeyer (1644–1708) in the opposing roles of both victim and instigator. The combination of these court cases and architectural treatises allows us to show how experiences of intrusions via broken windows share qualities with today’s conceptualisation of intrusions of privacy and thus point to the presence of notions of privacy in early modern societies.

근세일본의 교호(享保1716-1736년)시기에서의 상인학교의 등장

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the emergence of merchant schools and the merchant spirit of the samurai society in Kyoho period (1716∼1736) of the Edo Shogunate.
 Research design, data, and methodology: The research direction of this study was determined through previous research, and a comparison was made between Kaitokudo(懐徳堂), a government-run merchant school, and Singakugosha(心学講舎), a private merchant school, through their establishment backgrounds.
 Results: Kaitokudo was founded in Japan’s early modern society by the power of merchants, and the merchant school was sanctioned by the shogunate and emerged as a government institution, which is probably one of the most important schools in the world. This is a rare phenomenon, and is seen as a result of the intellectual equalization of merchants and samurai. Meanwhile, Shingaku Kosha, a private merchant school, was founded by Ishida Baigan(石田梅岩). Ishida Baigan asserted the legitimacy of merchants and commerce, which had been looked down upon in the past, instilled pride in merchants, elevated them to the philosophy of “merchant’s ways,” and led them to Sekimon Shingaku. It expanded and became the spiritual origin of Japanese capitalism.
 Implications: If we think about it from the standpoint of South Korea, which is also a Confucian country, we can see that it justified the “merchant’s profession and the profits earned by merchants,” which were considered debased until the 18th century, and equated (merchant’s) profits with (samurai’s) offerings. This led to the equalization of the duties of merchants and samurai (Korea: 兩班), which was a revolutionary idea at the time, and was popular in Japan during the Kyoho(亨保)period (1716-1736). It must be said that this was a major event, and a world historical event in the Asian world, something that had never been seen before in Europe, Korea, or China.

Persian Garlands of Stars: Islamicate and Indic Astral Sciences in Seventeenth-Century North India

Abstract This paper offers a study of Mullā Farīd and Mullā Ṭayyib, two astronomers active in several North Indian courts in the first half of the seventeenth century. The lives and works of these two brothers illustrate the central role of mathematical astronomy and astrology in the science of the time and its use by Indian Muslim nobility. They also document the familiarity of Indian Muslim scholars with Indic astrology and its practice in Muslim milieux. Mathematical astronomy was very much alive in seventeenth-century Mughal India, and Persian-writing scholars were commenting and revising the astronomical data and mathematics transmitted from the Maragha and Samarqand schools of astronomy. Their intellectual activities are also better understood in the context of the avid interest in occult sciences cultivated by early modern Persianate societies, and more particularly by the Mughal court. Mathematical astronomy was nurtured for the precise purpose of casting horoscopes and creating astrological almanacs. Astrological practices in North-Indian courts, including Delhi, the Mughal imperial capital, were evidently mixed and flavoured with elements from both Islamicate and Indic traditions. Knowledge was widely shared across languages and scientific interests went well beyond religious denominations. Crucially too, the exchange between the Persian and the Sanskrit scholastic worlds was sponsored by Mughal patrons and resulted in scientific translations from one language to the other. A closer reading of Mullā Farīd and Mullā Ṭayyib’s Persian works allows us to see that besides their more classical astronomical works, the two brothers shared a common interest in Indic methods of prognostication, in particular muhūrtaśāstra, the science of electing an auspicious moment to perform a certain action. In this paper, we elucidate an intricate dossier on the “bust hours,” an ancient prognostication method popular with Islamicate astrologers. Identified by Islamicate scholars as coming ultimately from India, the source of many features of Islamicate astrology, these bust hours were reinterpreted on Indian soil by Mullā Farīd and Mullā Ṭayyib in light of their first-hand knowledge of muhūrtaśāstra. In this manner, these bust hours came back full circle to the original Indian prognostication practices.

Early modern knitted caps (fifteenth to sixteenth centuries): analyzing dyes in archaeological samples using microspectrofluorimetry complemented by HPLC–MS

The knitted cap was the ubiquitous and most visible garment men wore throughout early modern society, from apprentices to royals. Documentary evidence also suggests that red was a conventional color for specific garments in the sixteenth century, including knitted caps. However, most knitted caps in museum collections are now a muddy brown characteristic of archaeological textiles, and their original color has seldom been studied. Considering the potential of microspectrofluorimetry for analyzing dyes in ancient textiles and manuscript illuminations, this technique was tested on six caps dating from the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries examined in the Knitting in Early Modern Europe research project. The colors are in good preservation condition in two samples, whereas the others show extensive degradation. The emission and excitation spectra acquired allowed the identification of the similarities and differences between samples, grouping them into different dye sources such as cochineal-based and madder-based (RED1 and RED2, respectively). For the coif cap and split-brimmed cap in good condition, analysis through HPLC–MS confirmed the sources of the dyes as Rubia tinctorum and cochineal. It also disclosed the source for another coif cap as Kermes vermilio (RED4). The other knitted items are possibly madder-based (RED3), but HPLC–MS did not allow confirmation of the madder source. The continuing development of a database of excitation and emission spectra acquired from historical textiles, such as the knitted caps, will support the identification of dye sources and specific formulations. Although this technique demands a comprehensive database of references for comparison with the complex signals identified, it allows for rapid spectra acquisition, providing tremendously valuable information.

Her Feet Hurt: Female Body and Pain in Chen Duansheng's Zaisheng yuan (Destiny of Rebirth)

This paper investigates the female writer Chen Duansheng's tanci fiction Zaisheng yuan, a story centered on a cross-dressed female protagonist. Evoking storytelling and stage performance, tanci fiction is a lengthy, rhymed narrative genre favored by female writers in the early modern Jiangnan region. This paper approaches Zaisheng yuan from the perspectives of gender and the senses to examine its representations of the female foot and pain. Zaisheng yuan repeatedly associates pain with the female practice of footbinding and spotlights the bound foot to address the female characters' distress and identity crisis. While the haptic-oriented descriptions of female feet speak to the gender stereotypes, through depicting both passive and active revealing of female feet, Zaisheng yuan demonstrates the emerging possibilities of female agency. In contrast to the male literary tradition, which treats the female body as a static spectacle, Zaisheng yuan endeavors to portray bound feet as an ongoing experience that causes pain from daily movements and calls for sympathetic audiences and mutual support from the female community. However, there are also times when the experience of pain, physical and especially psychological, cannot be shared, not only between genders but also between mothers and daughters, and this may indeed create obstacles to female companionship. To sum up, pain caused by bound feet provides a framework to shape the way women experienced the world, identified themselves, and interpreted the possibilities and limitations of their ways of living in early modern Chinese society.

Upstream, Downstream: Iron Mining in Early Modern Japan and the Uneven Spread of Environmental Protection

This article examines disputes over iron mining in early modern Japan (1600–1868), focusing on how and why some communities had greater say in stopping or permitting environmental harm. Well before Japan became the first non-Western society to industrialize, mountain miners in the southwestern region of Chūgoku developed increasingly effective technologies for extracting Japan’s most abundant source of iron—iron sand found in granite rock. But their hydraulic methods involved sending more than a billion cubic meters of tailings into the region’s rivers, wreaking downstream havoc, from ruined crops to tainted drinking water. When downstream people pushed to curtail mining, two important social factors came into play. First, across ironmaking river basins, and in contrast to better-known modern cases, more affluent downstream plains communities bore the brunt of the damage that poorer mountain miners caused. Indeed, miners used their villages’ relative poverty to galvanize official support to continue mining. At the same time, in negotiating compromises, upstream and downstream inhabitants of different river basins also arrived at sharply different standards of what constituted an acceptable level of mining. These differences depended on the complex political geography of early modern Japan, in which some jurisdictions had much greater authority than others. All told, these disputes both reaffirm and cut against more familiar patterns found in modern cases, foreshadowing the uneven spread of industry’s harms across the social landscape, while also reflecting the distinctive mining technology, political culture, and geography of this early modern society.

Migration and innovation in early modern Islamic societies. The case for firearms

AbstractThe objective of this article is to review the historiography of the relationship between migration and firearms technologies in the early modern Islamic World. By examining historiographical debates on the role of firearms in early modern Islamic societies, we will look at the place of migrants in the historical literature of firearms. During the colonial period, debates shifted from the alleged conservatism of Islamic societies regarding firearm technologies to their respective agencies in the diffusion of firearms in the early modern world. In this article, I will show that the historiography of firearm technologies in Islamdom exhibits a shift from essentialist arguments towards a history of technology transfers and the role of migrants in this process.

Saracens and their World in Boiardo and Ariosto by Maria Pavlova

Reviewed by: Saracens and their World in Boiardo and Ariosto by Maria Pavlova Francesco Lucioli Saracens and their World in Boiardo and Ariosto. By Maria Pavlova. (Italian Perspectives, 47) Cambridge: Legenda. 2020. xiv+282 pp. £75. ISBN 978–1–781883–47–1. In the Inamoramento de Orlando by Matteo Maria Boiardo and the Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto, Otherness is mainly represented by Saracens. However, as Maria Pavlova explains in the Introduction to her book (pp. 1–15), scholars have usually highlighted an opposition between Boiardo's admired representation of the Saracen world and its negative portrayal in Ariosto's poem, and have interpreted these different approaches in the light of the historical, political, and religious transformations that took place in Italy between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Pavlova aims to challenge this reading by reconsidering the close relationship between Italy and the Islamic world through an original postcolonial perspective, and by reading the two poems in the context of the literary tradition to which they belong. The first chapter (pp. 17–65) offers an in-depth analysis of how the Saracens' religion and culture were perceived and represented in chivalric literature and early modern Italian society. Through a close reading of the two Orlandos alongside French and Italian chivalric texts and in the light of the international relationships between Ferrara and the Turks, it is clear that Boiardo's and Ariosto's portrayals of the Islamic faith—as a false but not an evil cult—and their appreciation of Saracen culture, particularly chivalric values, are perfectly in line with both the previous literary tradition and the contemporary political interest in the East. The core of the book is then divided into two sections, with two chapters dedicated to Boiardo (pp. 66–126) and two to Ariosto (pp. 127–215). Both are preceded by an overview of the numerous Saracen characters included in the poems (also listed in the useful appendixes at the end of the book, pp. 225–46). The section dedicated to the Inamoramento de Orlando aims to highlight the intertextual nature of Boiardo's characters (many of the most important Saracens of his work come either from the Spagna or from the Aspramonte), even though 'the debt that Boiardo owes to the Italian Carolingian tradition is not limited to borrowed characters and names. He also appropriates themes, situations and stock characters, and in doing so, he often gives them a different meaning, subverting traditional stereotypes' (p. 89). Boiardo introduces new Saracen characters (such as Agricane, Sacripante, and Angelica) that are destined to embody the main topics of his poem—as well as of Ariosto's poem—such as love, honour, cortesia, vitality, and desire for glory, and also challenges previous chivalric works to reshape the dynastic protagonist Ruggiero, the Saracen to whom Boiardo attributes two ancient ancestors: Hector of Troy, to whom he is related through his Christian father, and Alexander the Great, to whom he [End Page 260] is connected through his Saracen mother, as explained in the Aspramonte. The section dedicated to the Orlando furioso begins with an analysis of the differences between Boiardo's and Ariosto's Paganìa (the latter is wider, as demonstrated by the inclusion of Sweden and Norway within the Christian world). Besides, through the Saracen characters—and particularly the new ones, such as Fiammetta and Isabella—Ariosto problematizes the topic of love, which was generally presented as a positive experience in the Inamoramento de Orlando. He also changes the representation of some of Boiardo's Saracens, such as Marsilio and Dardinello, probably following in this respect other chivalric texts (e.g. Andrea da Barberino's Aspramonte). These insights introduce a case study, namely the final duel between Ruggiero and Rodomonte. Through sixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts dedicated to duels, Pavlova recognizes in Rodomonte the moral winner of this final confrontation because he remains loyal to his values, unlike Ruggiero, who, on the contrary, betrays his faith and his lord. This exemplifies the fact that 'at the core of the ending of the Furioso lies the theme of betrayal', which is again 'one of the central themes in the Aspramonte, a crucial text for both Boiardo and Ariosto...