A conference has been organised to mark the 500th anniversary of the poem “Orlando Furioso” (The Frenzy of Orlando) by the Italian Institute of Culture in Oslo. Expert Lene Waage Petersen will explain the famous chivalric poem by Ludovico Ariosto. The work, considered among the most important in Renaissance literature, became famous and loved by its contemporaries and was almost immediately translated into Spanish, French and English. The poem is also considered the first modern bestseller because of the enormous influence that it had in the literary world and how it inspired other art forms, such as painting and music. Ariosto wrote “Orlando Furioso” while he was at the court of the d’Este dynasty in Ferrara and it was first published in 1516.
During Wednesday’s lecture Ms Waage Petersen, Reader Emeritus in Italian literature at the University of Copenhagen, will discuss the Renaissance culture that had been flourishing at the d’Este court since the 1440s. This created the conditions for Ariosto to continue working on Orlando throughout his life. He followed the first edition with two others, one in 1521 and another in 1532, the year of his death, making a number of additions that mirrored the political events of the time which culminated in the sack of Rome in 1527.
