Altri furti boiardeschi (‘Inamoramento de Orlando’ II, xxvii)

Dealing with Matteo Maria Boiardo’s Inamoramento de Orlando, this essay focuses on the section that comes before Agramante’s departure for France (II, xxviii) and suggests new sources. In particular, the drummer’s tirade against inept rulers seems to point to Ventura Monachi’s popular sonnet Se la Fortuna t’à fatto signore, as well as to a passage from Fazio degli Uberti’s Dittamondo (II, xxx). Moreover, the Saracen king’s assignments to his lieutenant seemingly allude to a common anti-forensic topos, the latter being present in numerous gnomic poems preceding and contemporary with Boiardo.