Canto XLI

The XLI canto of the Orlando furioso has a special focus of prophecies, premonitions, wrong inferences: in the canto many instances of the imponderable, the unpredictable are displayed, together with the sense of predestination. My reading of the canto analyses different episodes highlighting the multiple connections among these elements: the representation of the tempest and the battle of Lipadusa, the processes that lead to Ruggiero’s salvation and to Brandimarte’s death. Ariosto builds the links among the episodes through recurring words and situations, but also by quoting the Bible, Ovid, Dante, and having in mind also Pulci: Ruggiero is implicitly compared to Jonas, in his struggle against the tempest he reminds us the figure of Morgante in the Morgante by Pulci; Ruggiero reaching the shore of the little island after the tempest recalls Dante’s arrival to the Purgatory; Fiordiligi’s premonition of Brandimarte’s death is modelled on Alcyon’s one, after the departures of Ceyx, in Ovid, Metamorphoses XI. Brandimarte’s death anticipates not only Orlando’s one in the Rencesvals battle, but also Ruggiero’s death, which comes as a consequence of his conversion and his move to the Christian side.