Orlando Furioso

In the chivalric romance genre, arms, armor, and arming sequences are important motifs. Magic swords aid both Orlando and Ruggiero; they are important enough to get origin stories that rival those of human characters. For instance, Ruggiero’s sword is named Balisard, and was “fashioned by Falerina” (493). Ruggiero “knew the capability of his sword from long experience of using it: where Balisard fell, no enchantment could resist it—spells became powerless and inoperative. Therefore he took care to present neither the edge nor the point of his sword” (437) in many fights against Marfisa (his sister), Bradamant (his beloved), and Bradamant’s many family members.

Armor also plays a key role in protecting knights and connecting Ariosto’s poem to one of his inspirations—the Iliad. The armor of Homer’s hero Hector is worn by Mandricard for most of Orlando Furioso. When he fights Rodomont, the knights are evenly matched, “thanks to the protection of Hector’s armour” (294). After Ruggiero kills Mandricard, Ruggiero takes the armor, wearing “the helmet, celebrated in a greater poem, which the Trojan Hector wore a thousand years before” (463).

Arming sequences are a recurring motif in chivalric romances. Before the final fight between Ruggiero and Rodomont, “Orlando fitted Ruggiero’s spurs, Charlemagne slung the sword at his side, / Bradamant and Marfisa put on his breastplate and his other armour. Astolfo held his thoroughbred” (569). Another example of an arming sequence is when Marfisa changes from a dress into full armor: “She took off her dress and appeared in a doublet; her handsome, well-proportioned body, all but her face, took on a likeness to Mars. / When she was armed, she girt on her sword” (316). This passage brings together the traditionally masculine arming sequence with the traditionally feminine blazon (a list of a woman’s beautiful features). Shortly prior to this, Marfisa had put on a dress only to please her friends, but her armor transforms her so that she resembles a pagan God of war.