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Knights in distress and damsels in shining armour:celebrating 500 years of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso

Illustrated lecture, in English, by Eric Haywood, UCD

Travelling to the moon, lopping off heads, wooing damsels, criss-crossing the world on flying horses, fighting duels, visiting Ireland and, if absolutely necessary, defending Christendom against the forces of Islam: it’s all in a day’s work for the paladins of Emperor Charlemagne. But with such a packed agenda, is it any wonder they are usually distressed and have little time to burnish their armour? Especially when damsels refuse to play by the rules of chivalry and make a better job of donning armours.This mad world — a harbinger of our own — is the creation of Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533), one of Italy’s greatest writers, whose entertaining masterpiece, Orlando Furioso, was the top best-seller of the day. So join us in celebrating its 500th birthday.“Oh gran bontà de’ cavallieri antiqui!”Born and brought up in Switzerland, Eric Haywood is a graduate of Cambridge and Edinburgh universities, and also studied at the European
University Institute in Florence. A former President of the Association
of Teachers of Italian, he taught Italian language and literature at UCD
for close on 40 years, specializing in the culture of the Renaissance.
His research has focused mainly on Renaissance geography and
descriptions of Ireland, the culture of Renaissance Naples, and
Machiavelli’s comedy Mandragola. Currently he is working on: female humour in Mandragola, Petrarch’s rewriting of the last tale of Boccaccio’s Decameron (Griselda), the birth of the myth of Arcadia, the Irish in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, and dreams of Hellenism in the writings of Antonio De Ferrariis Galateo (died 1517). In 2014 he was knighted (Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia) by the President of Italy.

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