The miscellaneous details which enliven a tale of chivalry, are grouped round four chief centers—Paris, where the poem opens with the tournament that introduces Angelica, and where, at the end of the second book, all the actors are assembled for the supreme struggle between Christendom and Islam; Albracca, where Angelica is besieged in the far East; Biserta, where the hosts of pagan Agramante muster, and the hero Ruggiero is brought upon the scene; Montalbano, where Charlemagne sustains defeat at the hands of Agramante, Rodamonte, Marsilio, and Ruggiero. In order to combine such distant places in one action, Boiardo was obliged to set geography and time at defiance. Between Tartary and Circassia, France and Spain, Africa and Hungary, the knights make marches and countermarches within the space of a few weeks or even days. All arrive at the same dangerous gates and passes, the same seductive lakes and gardens; for the magical machinery of the romance was more important to the poet's scheme than cosmographical conditions. His more than dramatic contempt for distance was indispensable in the conduct of a romance which admitted of no pause in the succession of attractive incidents, and was also pardonable in an age devoid of accurate geography. His chief aim was to secure novelty, excitement, variety, ideal unity.

Boiardo further showed his grasp of art by the emphatic presentation of the chief personages, whose action determined the salient features of his tale. It is impossible to forget Angelica after her first entrance on the scene at Paris. In like manner Marfisa at Albracca, Rodamonte in the council-chamber at Biserta, Ruggiero on the heights of Mount Carena, Orlando entering the combat before Albracca, Mandricardo passing forth unarmed and unattended to avenge his father's death, are brought so vividly before our eyes, that the earliest impression of each character remains with us in all their subsequent appearances. The inferior actors are introduced with less preparation and diminished emphasis, because they have to occupy subordinate positions, and to group themselves around the heroes; and thus the whole vast poem is like a piece of arras-work, where the strongest definition of form, and the most striking colors, serve to throw into relief the principal figures amid a multitude of minor shapes. Not less skill is manifested in the preservation of the types of character outlined in these first descriptions. To vary the specific qualities of all those knights engaged in the same pursuit of love and arms, was extremely difficult. Yet Boiardo, sometimes working on the lines laid down by earlier romancers, sometimes inventing wholly new conceptions (as in the case of Rodamonte, Ruggiero, Marfisa, Brandiamante), may be said to have succeeded in this master-stroke of art. The Homeric heroes are scarcely less firmly and subtly differentiated than his champions of chivalry.

Orlando is the ideal of Christian knighthood, fearless, indifferent to wealth, chaste, religious, respectful in his love, courteous toward women, swift to wrath, but generous even in his rage, exerting his strength only when the occasion is worthy of him.[566] His one weakness is the passion for Angelica. Twice he refuses for her sake to accompany Dudone to the help of his liege-lord, and in the fight at Montalbano he is careless of Christendom so long as he can win his lady.[567] Studying Boiardo's delineation of love-lunacy in Orlando, we understand how Ariosto was led by it to the conception of the Furioso. Rinaldo is cast in a somewhat inferior mold. Lion-hearted, fierce, rebellious against Charles, prone to love and hate excessively, he is the type of the feudal baron, turbulent and troublesome to his suzerain. Astolfo, slight, vain, garrulous, fond of finery and flirting, boastful, yet as fearless as the leopards on his shield, and winning hearts by his courtesy and grace, offers a spirited contrast to the massive vigor of Rinaldo. It was a master-stroke of humor to have provided this fop of a Paladin with the lance of Argalia, whereby his physical weakness is supplemented and his bravery becomes a match for the muscles of the doughtiest champions.[568] Brandimarte presents another aspect of the chivalrous ideal. Fidelity is his chief virtue—loyalty to his love, Fiordelisa, and his hero, Orlando, combined with a delightful frankness and the freshness of untainted youth. He is not wise, but boyish, amorous, of a simple, trustful soul; a kind of Italian Sir Bors. Ferraguto, on the contrary, is all fire and fury, as petulantly fierce in love as in arms, so hot in his temerity that even at times he can forget the laws of honor.[569] Mandricardo's distinctive quality (beside that of generous daring, displayed in his solitary and unarmed quest of Orlando, and in the achievement of Hector's armor) is singular good fortune. Ruggiero has for his special mark victorious beauty, blent with a courtesy and loftiness of soul, that opens his heart to romantic love, and renders him peerless among youthful warriors. Boiardo has spared no pains to impress our imagination with the potency of his unrivaled comeliness.[570] He moves before our eyes like the angelic knight in Mantegna's Madonna of the Victory, or like Giorgione's picture of the fair-haired and mail-clad donzel, born to conquer by the might of beauty. Agramante, the Eastern Emperor, whose council is composed of thirty-two crowned heads, enhances by his arrogance of youth the world-worn prudence of old Charlemagne. Marfisa, the Amazonian Indian queen, who has the force of twenty knights, and is as cruel in her courage as a famished tigress, sets off the gentler prowess of Brandiamante, Rinaldo's heroic sister. Rodamonte is the blustering, atheistic, insolent young Ajax, standing alone against armies, and hurling defiance at heaven from the midst of a sinking navy.[571] Agricane is distinguished as the knight who loves fighting for its own sake, and disdains culture; Sacripante, as the gentle and fearless suitor of Angelica; Gradasso, as the hyperbolical champion of the Orient, inflamed with a romantic desire to gain Durlindana and Baiardo, the enchanted sword and horse. Gano and Truffaldino, among these paragons of honor, are notable traitors, the one brave when he chooses to abandon craft, the other cowardly. Brunello is the Thersites of the company, a perfect thief, misshapen, mischievous, consummate in his guile.[572] Malagise deals in magic, and has a swarm of demons at his back for all exigences. Turpin's chivalry is tempered with a subtle flavor of the priest, exposing him to Boiardo's mockery. Of Oliver and Ogier we hear, accidentally perhaps, but little. Such are some of Boiardo's personages. Not a few were given to him by the old romancers; but these he has new-fashioned to his needs.[573] Others he has molded from his own imagination with such plastic force that they fall short in no respect of the time-honored standard. It is no slight tribute to his creative power that we recognize a real fraternity between these puppets of his fancy and the mythic heroes with whom they are associated. As Boiardo left the actors in his drama, so Ariosto took them up and with but slight change treated them in his continuation of the tale.

Women, with the exception of Marfisa and Brandiamante, fare but ill at Boiardo's hands. He seems to have conceived of female character as a compound of fickleness, infidelity, malice, falsehood, and light love. Angelica is little better than a seductive witch, who dotes on Rinaldo, and yet contrives to make use of Orlando, luring him to do her purpose by false promises.[574] Falerina and Dragontina are sorceresses, apt for all iniquity and guile. Morgana and Alcina display the capricious loves and inhuman spites of fairies. Origille is a subtle traitress, beautiful enough to deceive Orlando, but as poisonous as a serpent. Even the ladies who are intended to be amiable, show but a low standard of morality.[575] Leodilla, princess of the Far Isles, glories in adultery, and hates Orlando for his constancy to Angelica in absence.[576] Fiordelisa is false in thought to Brandimarte, when she sees Rinaldo sleeping in the twilight. The picture, however, of the slumbering warrior and the watchful maiden is so fresh and true to Boiardo's genius that it deserves quotation[577]:

Upon his steed forthwith hath sprung the knight,
And with the damsel rideth fast away;
Not far they fared, when slowly waned the light,
And forced them to dismount and there to stay.
Rinaldo 'neath a tree slept all the night;
Close at his side the lovely lady lay:
But the strong magic of wise Merlin's well
Had on the baron's temper cast a spell.
He now can sleep anigh that beauteous dame;
Nor of her neighborhood have any care;
Erewhile a sea, a flood, a raging flame
Would not have stayed his quick desire, I swear:
To clasp so fair a creature without shame,
Walls, mountains, he'd have laid in ruins there;
Now side by side they sleep, and naught he recks;
While her, methinks, far other thoughts perplex.
The air, meanwhile, was growing bright around,
Although not yet the sun his face had shown;
Some stars the tranquil brows of heaven still crowned;
The birds upon the trees sang one by one:
Dark night had flown; bright day was not yet found:
Then toward Rinaldo turned the maid alone;
For she with morning light had cast off sleep,
While he upon the grass still slumbered deep.
Beauteous he was, and but a stripling then;
Strong-thewed and lithe, and with a lively face;
Broad in the chest, but in the haunches thin;
The lady gazed, smit with his manly grace:
His beard scarce budded upon cheek and chin:
Gazing, she almost fainted in that place,
And took such pleasure in so sweet a sight
That naught she heeds beyond this one delight.

Love, as conceived by Boiardo, though a powerful and steadfast passion, is not spiritual. The knights love like centaurs, and fight like bulls for the privilege of paying suit to their ladies. Rinaldo and Orlando meet in deadly duel for Angelica; Rodamonte and Ferraguto dispute Doralice, though the latter does not care for her, and only asserts his right to dwell in thought upon her charms. Orlando and Agricane break their courteous discourse outside Albracca to fight till one of them is killed, merely because the name of Angelica has intervened. For Boiardo's descriptions of love returned, and crowned with full fruition, the reader may be referred to two magnificent passages in the episodes of Leodilla and Fiordelisa.[578] Poetically noble in spite of their indelicacy, these pictures of sensuous and natural enjoyment might be paralleled with the grand frankness of Venetian painting. It is to be regretted for Boiardo's credit as an artist in expression, that more than a bare reference to them is here impossible.

Boiardo's conception of friendship or fraternity in arms is finer. The delineation of affection generated by mutual courtesy under the most trying conditions of intercourse, which binds together the old rivals Iroldo and Prasildo, has something in it truly touching.[579] The same passion of comradeship finds noble expression in the stanzas uttered by Orlando, when he recognizes Rinaldo's shield suspended by Aridano near Morgana's Lake.[580] It must be remembered that the cousins had recently parted as foes, after a fierce battle for Angelica before Albracca:

Hearing these dulcet words, the Count began
Little by little of his will to yield;
Backward already he withdrew a span,
When, gazing on the bridge and guarded field,
Force was that he the armor bright should scan
Which erst Rinaldo bore—broad sword and shield:
Then weeping, "Who hath done me this despite?"
He cried: "Oh, who hath slain my perfect knight?
"Here wast thou killed by foulest treachery
Of that false robber on this slippery bridge;
For all the world could not have conquered thee
In fair fight, front to front, and edge to edge:
Cousin, from heaven incline thine ear to me!
Where now thou reignest, list thy lord and liege!
Me who so loved thee, though my brief misprision,
Through too much love, wrought 'twixt our lives division.
"I crave thy pardon: pardon me, I pray,
If e'er I did thee wrong, sweet cousin mine!
I was thine ever, as I am alway,
Though false suspicion, or vain love malign,
And jealous blindness, on an evil day,
Brought me to cross my furious brand with thine:
Yet all the while I loved thee—love thee now;
Mine was the fault, and only mine, I vow.
"What traitorous wolf ravening for blood was he
Who thus debarred us twain from kind return
To concord sweet and sweet tranquillity,
Sweet kisses, and sweet tears of souls that yearn?
This is the anguish keen that conquers me,
That now I may not to thy bosom turn,
And speak, and beg for pardon, ere I part;
This is the grief, the dole that breaks my heart!"

Scarcely less beautiful is the feeling which binds Brandimarte to the great Count, the inferior to the superior hero, making him ready to release his master from Manodante's prison at the price of his own liberty.[581] Boiardo devotes the exordium of the seventh Canto of the third Book to a panegyric of chivalrous friendship: