Allegory

The whole of the narrative of the Furioso is interlaced with allegory that emerges out of certain episodes and figurations,  linked to the tradition of  emblems. The figurative element has a fundamental role in the conception of the emblem; it identifies an object, a detail of the setting or an animal, and elevates it to a greater significance. According to some scholars the whole of Ariosto’s romance aims to give a moral message that is not immediately perceptible, encased as it is in emblematic representations. If perhaps allegory does not pervade the whole romance, it is however evident that certain passages of the  Furioso contain explicitly allegorical elements. This is the case with Alcina’s island (cantos VI-VIII), where the imprisoned Ruggiero is freed by the sorceress Logistilla, allegory for Reason. There are here a series of allegorical images related to human vices and the clash between the two fairies recalls the relationship between the various faculties of the soul.  Ariosto illustrates an allegorical passage from Alcina’s irrationality to Logistilla’s logos. Also the castle of Atlante, above all in canto XII, is an important allegorical image that Ariosto takes from Boiardo, albeit adding other layers of significance that supersede the  representation of the court. The great valley on the moon that Astolfo visits, in canto XXXIV, with the things lost by men, also has an allegorical significance: it is the ‘earth’ seen by the ‘moon’. The allegorical element in the Furioso subsequently filters into the heroic poem, the literary genre that lies between chivalrous romance and Tasso’s epic poem, that began to take root in the middle of the XVI century.  In the allegorical poem Italia liberata dai Goti [1547] (Italy freed of the Goths) by Gian Giorgio Trissino the allegorical images are superimposed.