ABSTRACT
Ariosto's trope of the map in fact highlights a fundamental element of Orlando Furioso's cartographic imagination, namely the 'carticity' of its writing. It is highly significant that Ariosto initiates the last canto of the Furioso with such cartographic imagery for, in doing so, the entire epic poem appears retrospectively as a map reading. Moreover, this nautical metaphor, or, to put it more accurately, this metaphor of the nautical chart, functions as an eloquent trace of transmediation, of a process of translation between the medium of the map and the medium of writing. A first example of this transmediation can be found in Ruggiero's airborne travel around the planet. Ruggiero experiences the world through his spatial relations. He not only flies over the world, he measures it like a cartographer. And the hippogriff serves as his mobile observation device. Not unlike Ruggiero's travels, Astolfo's maritime and airborne voyages are also enterprises of global dimensions.
