La Vendetta di Falconetto e l'Orlando furioso

This contribution returns to the question of the vulgar sources of Ariosto, proposing to analyze a Carolingian text and its possible relationship with Orlando furioso , so far escaped the attention of critics: the long version of Falconetto's Vendetta . It starts with an examination of the points of contact between the two poems, starting with the similarities at the level of individual episodes, to arrive at more general thematic and structural affinities. Taken as a whole, the study suggests that the presence of the Vengeance , whose characters are capable of cynical actions and not infrequently fall short of chivalrous values, could at least partially explain some of the more disconcerting elements in the depiction of chivalry in the Furioso