SOURCE: Hoffman, Katherine. “‘Un così valoroso cavalliero’: Knightly Honor and Artistic Representation in Orlando furioso, Canto 26.” In Renaissance Transactions: Ariosto and Tasso, edited by Valeria Finucci, pp. 178-212. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999.

In the following essay, Hoffman explores Ariosto's apparent conflict between idealistic honor and pragmatic political practices by focusing on canto 26 of Orlando furioso.

Insofar as the Orlando furioso with its breakneck succession of episodes can be said to have lulls, canto 26 is one of them. One of several cantos in which the plot is sustained and embroidered, it includes no major narrative beginnings, turning points, or endings. Canto 26's main distinction is its allegorical art passage, the description of a mysterious fountain whose sculptures represent sixteenth-century monarches battling a monster symbolizing avarice. But apart from this still center, in which the knights sit down and rest between bouts of furious activity, the narrative streams...