Titian's Ruggiero and Angelica: a tribute to Ludovico Ariosto
Linda Freedman
Titian's drawing (25 × 40 cm) in Musee Bonnat (Bayonne), showing a recumbent voluptuous nuda lush landscape, depicts an episode from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (×, 94–107). It conveys the very essence of romance, proclaimed famous first lines poem. The about Ruggiero's rescue Angelica that Ariosto described and Titian rendered with acclaimed ‘verisimilitude’ occurred imaginary place, ‘olden days’. By emphasizing nuda, her posture, gestures, rather than knights heroic deeds, intimates Angelica's role life. motif nude transcends subject's boundaries. I suggest interpreting this figure as Voluptas, understood ambivalently both antiquity Renaissance. created pen-and-ink visual counterpart to literary account romance whole. serves example what ‘usually’ happens pars pro toto.
Renaissance Studies