OF LOVES and LADIES, KNIGHTS and ARMS, I sing,

Of COURTESIES, and many a DARING FEAT;

And from those ancient days my story bring,

When Moors from Afric passed in hostile fleet,

And ravaged France, with Agramant their king,

Flushed with his youthful rage and furious heat,

Who on king Charles', the Roman emperor's head

Had vowed due vengeance for Troyano dead.

I sing of knights and ladies, of love and arms, of courtly chivalry, of courageous deeds.' So begins Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (1532), the culmination of the chivalric legends of Charlemagne and the Saracen invasion of France. It is a brilliantly witty parody of the medieval romances, and a fitting monument to the court society of the Italian Renaissance which gave them birth…

Ludovico Ariosto (8 September 1474 – 6 July 1533) was an Italian poet. He is best known as the author of the romance epic Orlando Furioso (1516). The poem, a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, describes the adventures of Charlemagne, Orlando, and the Franks as they battle against the Saracens with diversions into many sideplots. Ariosto composed the poem in the ottava rima rhyme scheme and introduced narrative commentary throughout the work.