The Cinque Canti

With the term Cinque canti reference is made to five cantos from the Furioso, composed of 548 octaves, and never inserted into the Furioso, a copy of which was kept by the poet’s favourite son Virginio. Published for the first time in1545, in Venice, by the heirs of Aldo Manuzio at the back of an edition of the Furioso, they were again reprinted in 1546 in a single edition by Bernardo Giunti. These cantos tell of a series of deceits contrived by Alcina, with the help of Gano di Maganza, as vengeance against Charles and his knights. Scholars have interrogated themselves on what date to attribute to these works and who they might have been destined to. Segre considers them to be late, between 1521 and 1528, as an additional gionta as compared to the one added to the second edition of 1521. Dionisotti instead hypothesises the date to be earlier, between 1518 and 1519. More than a new piece to be added to the romance, these cantos could have been part of a plan to continue the story of Ruggiero after his marriage to Bradamante. The Cinque canti are laboriously constructed and seem to mark a return to the style of Boiardo, if indeed not to the cantari or bards, in the direction of a less structured and less intertwined narrative as compared to that of the Furioso. The cantos are enveloped in deep and blood chilling pessimism that emerge from the deserted and fearsome scenes, horrid and desolate places that are quite inhuman, populated by monstrous apparitions and dramatic situations. In the Cinque canti prevail discord, jealousy, perfidy, lack of pity: the set of values seems to be the opposite of that in the Furioso, as if this were a palinode or recantation. A central role is played by envy, who appears in a dream to Gano giving life to vengeance against Rinaldo, Bradamente and Ricciardetto, and by suspicion,  the pestilence of tyrants, the disquieting worm of doubt that makes them constantly diffident.