ABSTRACT
M ilitary values, w hether virtues or vices, do not exist in a cultural vacuum . Since society recognized w ar as the social purpose o f the nobility and the resort o f kings, w ar had been idealized in story, song and image. Even in the centuries before realist canons in a rt becam e the norm , the image o f w ar was a vehicle for concrete ideas about politics, society and social relations tha t enshrined the superiority of the old nobility. N ot all was im aginary, far from it. Princes expected their m ilitary servants to accom plish bold deeds at the risk o f their lives, and to display a disregard for their persons which they w ould recom pense appropriately.1 Princes sometimes held m ilitary accom plishm ents to be the prerequisite for the attribution o f political or cerem onial functions a t the court, a practice explicidy followed by Charles E m anuel I in T u rin .2 T he desired im pression was to adorn the sovereign with a garland o f fearless, distinguished and selfless servants o f high birth whose sense o f adventure was second only to their fidelity. T he m ost elaborate literary expression o f this world was the chivalry rom ance, an extraordinarily popular art form enjoying an unbroken vogue from the fifteenth until the early decades o f the seventeenth century. Earlier rom ances blended historical figures and fictitious knights from A ntiquity and the M iddle Ages. T he H igh Renaissance reworked prose rom ances into rhym e, for easier recitation and greater elegance, and elabo rated stories inside stories. T h e reading and listening audience of these works was quite wide, for bo th sexes. C ounter-R eform ation preachers deem ed most o f this escapist and exotic literature inoffensive. T he most celebrated single voice was Ludovico Ariosto, a poet at the Este court o f Ferrara in the 1520s, whose Orlando
Jurioso saw as m any as 183 printings in Italy from 1516 to 1600 and spawned countless im itations.3 It wove intricate adventures o f kings, princes, knights and their female counterparts in an enchanted world, roughly articulated around the em peror C harlem agne and his epic w ar against the M oors. T h a t particu lar work was the literary ‘best-seller’ o f late-sixteenth century' Italy. Em erging from this we also see a revival o f the concept o f the ‘C hristian’ knight w ho upheld orthodoxy and good religion, risking m artyrdom in the good fight.5
