In this fascinating book, Eleonora Stoppino aims “to demonstrate the intrinsic connections among … chivalric culture, the dynastic system, and gender relations — and to define them as instances of genealogy” (2), by following especially the character of Bradamante. The dynasty in question, the Este, were especially tense about the question of illegitimacy, and in this period placed increasing pressure on their wives.
Chapter 1, “Marriage by Duel,” begins with the concept of chivalric intertextuality, which “is particularly relevant for a character like Bradamante, because only in constellation with her previous incarnations does Ariosto’s manipulation of the preexisting literary material reveal the ideological and political function of the character in the Furioso” (21). In the Furioso, Ariosto makes the unprecedented choice of a woman as the addressee of the poem’s central dynastic prophecies; with this renovation of the Virgilian model, Ariosto positions Bradamante, not Ruggiero, as the founder of the dynasty. Stoppino uses the medieval intertexts, which are even more important in the third edition of the poem, to argue convincingly that Bradamante’s final defeat by Ruggiero does not signify her loss of autonomy. Instead, Bradamante enters the public sphere, and “Ariosto represents the female founder of the Este dynasty as choosing to found the dynasty itself” (33).
Chapter 2 studies the related figures of the woman warrior and the widespread imagery of Amazons. Representing the threat of female self-sufficiency and control over reproduction, the Amazons appear in the Furioso in the form of the femine omicide (homicidal women). The tale of their society’s founding, narrated by the illegitimate Guidon Selvaggio, connects female rule with anxiety about legitimacy.
Chapter 3, “The Paradox of Helen,” introduces the questions of wives’ conflicting loyalties, and their (lack of) responsibility for wars and alliances. Focusing on Lidia’s tale in the Ariostan Inferno, Stoppino skillfully elucidates the episode’s sources to demonstrate first that Lidia was “a nonresponsible cause of war” (106); and furthermore that Ariosto portrays Lidia’s choice of action as unknowable because forestalled by her suitor’s violence.
In chapter 4, Stoppino returns to Bradamante and genealogical prophecies, arguing that Ariosto shatters the patrilineal tradition to present prophecy as female gift-giving, in opposition to the violent model of male commerce. Stoppino establishes that despite Ariosto’s undermining of encomium, he leaves open the possibility of sincere poetic praise. For Ariosto, gifts entail vulnerability to betrayal, recalling the poem’s motto (pro bono malum) with its emblem of the bees (Melissa’s namesake). The episode of Merlin’s cave includes numerous references to betrayal, from Pinabello to Giulio and Ferrante d’Este. Melissa later shows the dangerous side of the gift (conflated with a bribe, i.e., commodity exchange) in the Mantuan episode. While Ariosto proposes the gift system as a possible model of genealogy free of violence, the “text, however, denies the realization of this dream: Bradamante fully participates in the violence” of the traditional model (148).
In her final chapter, considering the Furioso as a nuptial epic, Stoppino stresses the enormous pressure the Este placed on their wives to support their aggressive expansionist politics. Ariosto’s epithalamium on Lucrezia Borgia acknowledges marriage’s double nature as an alliance and as a betrayal of the wife’s birth family and state, but finally insists on the former aspect, erasing the violence of the Rape of the Sabines model. The Rocca di Tristano episode concerns female identity, confirming that “sex does not matter; what matters is the position the subject assumes” (163). By holding two roles simultaneously (warrior and beauty queen), Bradamante implies that exogamy can empower women with multiple roles. Drawing again on medieval precursors, Stoppino shows Ariosto’s firm rebuttal of misogyny and praise of negotiation in politics.
The book itself is well made, with a beautiful dust jacket and very few typographical errors. This impressive study of the Furioso as illuminated by its little-known medieval sources is thorough and well argued. It forms an important contribution to scholarship on early modern narrative, and will doubtless interest scholars of gender studies as well.
