The importance of plausibility over visibility in Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (1516/1532) and Italo Calvino’s Le città invisibili (1972)
by Ava Siena Cohen
(A shorter version of this paper was given by the author at the ASLE-UKI 'Transitions' Conference on August 31st 2023)
Introduction
Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) and Italo Calvino (1923-1985) are writing texts about imagined travel during ages of ocularcentrism, when one must see something in order for it to exist. Ariosto is writing during the discovery of the New World, therefore during the shift in the purpose of travel; pilgrimage was no longer the primary form of travel (Mac Carthy 2007, 402) and therefore people travelled in order to discover. Calvino is writing during another wave of ocularcentrism with the advent of the television. At this time, people are seeing more than ever before, for example, the Vietnam War (1954-1975) was the first televised war (Mandelbaum 1982, 157). Despite historical contexts in which visibility was of great importance, we see Ariosto and Calvino writing travel narratives about places and methods of transport that cannot be seen, only imagined. Centuries before it became possible, Ariosto writes about air and space travel, and while Ariosto’s hatred of travel is well-documented, he describes Ruggiero’s travels across the globe (Mac Carthy 2007, 397), a journey Ariosto did not experience. Similarly, Calvino writes explicitly about invisible cities with impossible properties; some are located in the sky, some seem to grow independently as if they are living beings. This essay therefore asks two primary questions: how does Ariosto and Calvino’s travel writing explore the notion that one does not need to see something in order for it to exist? And what is the purpose of the imagined travel narratives which Ariosto and Calvino create?
In order to answer these questions, I will look at Ariosto’s Orlando furioso [The Frenzy of Orlando] (OF), first published in 1516 and then in 1532, and Italo Calvino’s Le città invisibili [Invisible Cities] (1972). I will examine the framing of Calvino’s travel narrative, the conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan and the questioning of whether it matters that Marco Polo’s cities are invisible. This is compared to how Ariosto frames his travel narrative; the hippogriff which carries Ruggiero on a world tour, a blending of geographically tangible locations and an improbable method of travel. I then explore some of the most distant locations visited in the texts – Ariosto’s moon, and Calvino’s cities in the sky. These destinations, while unlikely to be visited by readers, are not so distant from their world. Ariosto uses his moon to criticise the Renaissance courts and Calvino uses similar structures to criticise how humans in his contemporary society relate to the natural world. To do so, I will use three theoretical concepts: anti-ocularcentrism, geocriticism and ecocriticism. Anti-ocularcentrism is the idea that one does not need to see something for it to exist[1]. Geocriticism is a theory developed by Bertrand Westphal (2011) through which he argues that space is not a stable concept; a place that is written about is no less real than one built from tangible materials. Finally, ecocriticism is the study of how the natural world is portrayed in literature and how humans interact with the natural world. Ariosto and Calvino are authors who display these notions in their work due to the unrealistic but plausible elements of their travel narratives which are used to criticise their contemporary societies. We see both writers reject realism in their work, with figures such as Cesare Pavese noting how there are traces of Ariosto in Calvino’s writing (Re 2003, 211), due to the ‘child-like fantasy world’ (Bondanella 2003, 1) created through their imagined travelogues.
Ocularcentrism and Anti-ocularcentrism
Before discussing Ariosto and Calvino’s imagined travel narratives, it is important to discuss ocularcentrism and introduce how they reject this idea. This is the idea that one must be able to see something in order for it to exist, therefore prioritising sight over other senses. Its history is deeply connected to the Renaissance; many of the most notable figures from this time left visual artefacts, for example painters and sculptors (Johnson 2003, 2) which shows the reliance on sight in the documentation of the Italian Renaissance. This also found its way into science, as this is when studying the human body became a visual endeavour with the introduction of dissection (ibid, 3), implying that in order for the scientific process to happen, one must be able to visualise it. This shows how the shift in perception towards a reliance on sight is ‘historical and cultural rather than purely physiological’ (Macpherson 2006, 97), although it affected science. As ocularcentrism is a cultural phenomenon, this allows its meaning and function to change over time, and during the Italian Renaissance we can see how this was applied to travel. We see that during the Age of Discovery in Italy, ‘pilgrimage was no longer the most prestigious form of travel’ (Mac Carthy 2007, 402) and explorers were discovering new places. At this time, we see people travelling in order to see new things, for an ocularcentric purpose, despite the argument that the ‘supremacy of the gaze’, or ocularcentrism, is a twenty-first-century idea (Westphal 2011, 131).
Ocularcentrism survived long after the Italian Renaissance and does form a part of a modern (twentieth and twenty-first century) outlook. This has a linguistic effect as ‘when someone says “I see,” that person comprehends (though not always very well). In this case, which applies to English, French, and many other languages, vision is synonymous with understanding.’ (Westphal 2011, 132). Furthermore, ocularcentrism is imbedded into our view of landscape as it is ‘assumed to be a primarily visual mappable entity’ (Macpherson 2006, 96). Modern scholarship tends to privilege the visual, with Kavanagh stating that the ‘eye is the hinge point between the subjective and the objective, the window to the world and the mirror of the soul’ (Kavanagh 2013, 6), implying that even spiritual concepts such as a soul can be seen. However, others criticise the rise of ocularcentrism, referring to this perspective as a ‘regime of surveillance’ (Johnson 2003, 1).
In writing which challenges ocularcentrism, we see that in landscape study, the focus has shifted away from visibility and towards ‘representation and iconography’ (Macpherson 2006, 97). This is seen in Calvino’s postmodern narrative in Le città invisibili where his landscapes are representations, often of emotions, rather than visitable locations. We therefore see how ‘sight isn’t necessarily the primary medium through which we come to know and organize our understandings of the land’ (ibid, 95) in Calvino and Ariosto’s texts; both explore the reactions, impressions and emotions associated with the landscapes discussed in their narratives rather than the visual aspect of this travel. For example, Ariosto explores Astolfo’s impression of the moon compared to earth (OF, XXXIV, lxx), but does not detail everything that Astolfo sees on the moon as this is not his purpose of travel (OF, XXXIV, lxxiii). This lack of importance placed on visibility could reflect Ariosto’s hatred of travel (Mac Carthy 2007, 397), which seems contradictory considering his creation of a comprehensive travelogue in the Orlando furioso. Ariosto creates seemingly impossible aspects of travel, despite the rise of ocularcentrism. These include a trip to the moon and air travel with the assistance of a hippogriff, which are made plausible. Calvino, who like Ariosto, rejects ocularcentric travel, writes about cities that are visited through imagination and emotion, rather than physically. They therefore reject the importance placed on visibility and instead rely on plausibility to create their travelogues. For Ariosto and Calvino, one does not need to see something in order for it to exist, rather one must believe it for it to exist. This creates the basis for their travel narratives and is referred to as anti-ocularcentrism in the following paragraphs.
‘a che ti serve, allora, tanto viaggiare?’ (Calvino 2022, 25): Marco Polo & Kublai Khan
To shape the travelogue in Le città invisibili, Calvino organizes his text around Marco Polo describing the invisible cities of Kublai Khan’s empire to him, which creates a narrative symmetry (Bondanella 2003, 2). Although often discussed as a purely structural device, these
framing conversations permit the reader to learn how Calvino theorises travel in the work. This allows Calvino to explicitly address the question of plausibility of his invisible cities. The text starts from an anti-ocularcentric viewpoint as the first conversation between Polo and Khan questions if it matters that these cities cannot be seen. There is an implication that they are intangible as we are told of ‘montagne istoriati’ (Calvino 2022, 5) [illustrated mountains][2], however, it is clear that this does not matter as Calvino ‘sembra scomparire ogni distinzione fra reale e fantastico’ (Milanini 1990, 137) [seems to remove the distinction between real and fantastic]. Calvino’s central argument is that the tangibility of the cities is not what makes them plausible, rather their significance. Therefore, symbolism is of utmost importance, and Calvino writes that each city has ‘il potere degli emblemi’ (Calvino 2022, 22) [the power of being a symbol]. Calvino subscribes to the theory that space is symbolic, and this allows him to take his reader into the world of the imaginary (Westphal 2011, 1) and this is made explicit when Kublai Khan tells Marco Polo that his cities do not exist (Calvino 2022, 57). We can see in the cities themselves that their tangibility is secondary to their plausibility. For example, the city of Fedora is built up of models of what the city could have looked like (Calvino 2022, 31); the city documents every version of itself. The documentation of this city concludes by saying that each version of the city is of equal important as each one ‘è imaginato come possibile’ (ibid, 32) [imagined as possible]. Therefore, for Calvino, plausibility is as important as visibility in this chapter, and this is an intentional part of his writing, as Calvino himself stated that Le città invisibili is a collection of stories based on the blending of real landscapes in his own life and also places that he has imagined (Calvino 1983, 37).
As Calvino blends the tangible and the fantastic regarding his landscapes, this allows him to create a more unrealistic modality of travel and unstable temporal system. Marco Polo states that he travels ‘in uno spazio della mente dove regna la stessa calma di qui’ (Calvino 2022, 101) [in a mental space where it is as calm as here]. This not only highlights that Polo’s travels are imaginary but emphasises the appeal of imagined travel due to the sense of calm with which it is associated. This presents a contrast to Milanini’s idea that this imagined travel is disorienting (Milanini 1990, 136), however, his theory could be in reference to Calvino’s unstable temporality, rather than spatiality, as it is unclear whether Polo is narrating travels that happened in the past, present or future, causing Khan to explicitly ask him when his travels take place (Calvino 2022, 26). We therefore see Calvino presenting an ambiguity within imagined travel as it is simultaneously calming and disorienting. This could be because for Calvino, the city is not a place and rather a symbol around which he can reflect, and these symbols are often ambiguous (Milanini 1990, 142); his cities plausibly exist because they represent something, particularly human emotion. These cities are formed of ‘desideri e di paure, anche se il filo del loro discorso è segreto, le loro regole assurde, le prospettive ingannevoli, e ogni cosa ne nasconde un’altra’ (Calvino 2022, 41) [desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules absurd, their perspectives misleading, and something is always hidden within], showing that although the geography of the cities may be fabricated, it is a celebration of the power of the human imagination (Milanini 1990, 137), and it is therefore plausible due to its emotional significance.
Although travel in the narrative is mostly based on reflection and imagination, Calvino gives many theories surrounding the purpose of travel. We can see that despite Calvino ‘allowing cultural difference to become an abstraction’ (Birringer 1989, 122) within his cities, in the conversations between Polo and Khan, their cultural differences are important. Communication is an important reason for travel which is shown through Polo expressing himself ‘con gesti, salti, grida di meraviglia e d’orrore’ (Calvino 2022, 21) [with gestures, leaps, cries of astonishment and horror], to be understood. We can interpret this as cross-cultural communication as Khan refers to Polo as ‘straniero’ (ibid, 57) [foreigner]. We can see the further importance of communication through the discussion of travel narratives, in which it is stated that ‘chi comanda al racconto non è la voce: è l’orecchio’ (ibid, 133) [the voice does not ask for the story, the ear does], implying that the importance of travel is to communicate the travel stories to a listener. While the exchange of stories is of importance, it is not the only important exchange in the narrative. Calvino is writing in a ‘postmodern global culture that exchanges people, information, objects and images across all and any territories’ (Birringer 1989, 122). This is seen through the description of travel as ‘uno scambio d’elementi’ (Calvino 2022, 41), implying both the exchange of goods between cities, and stories between Polo and Khan.
Furthermore, we see travel for the purpose of discovery; Khan imagines cities and sends Polo to explore them, regardless of if they exist (Calvino 2022, 53). Once he has gained the knowledge, Khan ‘non aveva bisogno di mandare Marco Polo in spedizioni lontane’ (ibid, 118) [no longer needed to send Marco Polo on distant expeditions]. We see that this purpose of travel, similar to Astolfo’s lunar expedition, is a ‘specific, goal-oriented quest’ (Re 2003, 217), therefore, once the quest is complete, there is no need for travel. However, we see that this quest is difficult to complete as it is not only about discovery of the other, but also discovery of the self. We see that travel and self-discovery are connected and therefore discovering a new city can teach one about their own city. This is shown as Polo states that ‘ogni volta che descrivo una città dico qualcosa di Venezia’ (Calvino 2022, 86) [every time I describe a city I say something about Venice]. Towers notes that Le città invisibili resonated with American readers in 1972, as through reading about other cities, the readers were able to reflect on their own situation (2022, 472), therefore showing how a purpose of travel, even mental travel, is self-discovery and self-reflection.
Although there is a clear purpose of travel put forward in Calvino’s narrative, due to the intangibility of the cities, we see Khan struggling with this anti-ocularcentric position. He explicitly asks ‘a che ti serve, allora, tanto viaggiare?’ (Calvino 2022, 25) [what does travelling so much do for you?], questioning the quantity and modality of Marco Polo’s mental travel. This is pertinent as the narrative is set against the backdrop of Khan’s tangible empire. This gives way to the geocritical reading of Le città invisibili; ‘the distance between real space and represented or transposed space has blurred’ (Westphal 2011, 84) in the postmodern era, and Khan struggles with this lack of distinction. We learn that ‘il Gran Kan possiede un atlante dove tutte le città dell’impero e dei reami circonvicini sono disegnate palazzo per palazzo’ (Calvino 2022, 133) [the Great Khan has an atlas where his empire’s cities and nearby realms are drawn palace by palace]. This explains why he questions anti-ocularcentric travel; if it is possible to see an entire empire in front of him, why travel to imagined places? However, in the structure of the text, Calvino refutes this position; the previous city is Olinda, which continuously grows in concentric circles (ibid, 126-7). Although this is one of Marco Polo’s invisible cities, a version of Olinda appears in Khan’s atlas, as it displays ‘come… tre città quadrate stiano l’una dentro l’altra’ (ibid, 133) [how three square cities are located one within the other]. While this is not explicitly Olinda, these cities are laid out in the same way. Therefore, despite Khan’s inability to understand anti-ocularcentric locations at this stage, we can see that the city exists because Polo is able to conceive of the idea. However, at the end of the text, we see that Khan does in fact understand anti-ocularcentrism, as he has invisible cities himself. His atlas contains cities ‘visitate nel pensiero ma non ancora scoperte’ (Calvino 2022, 159) [visited in thought but not yet discovered]. This argues that it does not matter if a place can be seen, so long as one can think of it. The promise of the city makes it plausible and therefore credible, showing that ‘in the postmodern era one can no longer say that the world of cement, concrete, or steel is more real than the world of paper and ink’ (Westphal 2011, 3), an idea equally explored in the framework of Ariosto’s travel narrative.
‘Rather an airplane than a flying horse’ (Grant 1935, 19): Ariosto's hippogriff
Ariosto, like Calvino, creates a framework in order to link together the various aspects of his travel narrative. This framework is in the form of the hippogriff, as it is on the back of the hippogriff that the long-distance air travel in the Orlando furioso takes place. This is because the hippogriff is an ideal mode of transportation, as its physicality is adapted in a convenient way. For example, Ariosto frequently makes note of the hippogriff’s speed, letting us know that the hippogriff ‘cala e poggia in uno attimo’ (OF, II, xxxviii) [lowers and stops in a moment], therefore can start travelling very quickly. We see that this speed, which is necessary for the narrative rhythm and the travel theme in the poem (Re 2003, 223), is reflected in the hippogriff’s physicality. For example, Pinabello compares his own speed on horseback to that of the hippogriff, stating that it took him six days on horseback to catch up to the hippogriff (OF, II, xli), implying the great speed at which the hippogriff travels. This allows Ariosto to cover large spaces within his writing, reflecting on the exploration of the New World which was happening at this time. We see this as Ariosto states explicitly that the hippogriff ‘lasciato avea di gran spazio distante/tutta l’Europa, et era uscito fuore’ (OF, VI, xvii) [had left Europe far behind and travelled a great distance]. In addition to reflecting the journeys outside of Europe that were being taken at the time, we see that the hippogriff flying across Europe within a line of poetry allows Ariosto to manipulate distance; the continent of Europe seems smaller as the hippogriff can cross it quickly, but larger as only a hippogriff could do so. This ‘multiplicity of locations, both imagined and real, and its constantly shifting perspectives lend the Furioso a heady sense of open spaces and boundless geographical possibilities’ (Mac Carthy 2007, 397), therefore showing how Ariosto uses hippogriff travel to push the boundaries of what is possible and create a blend of the geographically accurate and the fantastic.
This idea is aided by Ariosto’s focus on the hippogriff’s wingspan, which allows the hippogriff to travel these great distances by air, making it a convenient mode of travel. It is the wings that make the hippogriff more suited to travel than a horse, and Ariosto specifically describes it throughout as a ‘destriero alato’ (OF, IV, iv) [winged steed]. This is because the hippogriff is always seen in flight, it is ‘quel che va per l’aria’ (OF, IV, xlvi) [that which moves by sky], rather than one which walks. In addition to the advantage of speed, the hippogriff’s ability to fly makes the hippogriff a vantage point which ‘foreshadows the cinematic use of ‘panning’ and ‘tracking’ by several centuries’ (Farnetti 2003, 93). This cinematic perspective can be seen as the hippogriff descends towards Alcina’s island (ibid, 94), but also when Ruggiero ‘mirando a basso’ (OF, X, xcii) [looking down] sees Angelica chained to a stone. Therefore, the hippogriff’s flight, which grants Ruggiero this almost cinematic vantage point is what saves Angelica, and in turn making the hippogriff an even more apt mode of transport, exploring the benefits of air travel centuries before it was a possibility.
Although the hippogriff, as a crossbreed, is described as both a bird and a horse, Ariosto makes it clear that the hippogriff is better than other animals. It has characteristics of both horses and birds which make it better than these animals individually. For example, Ariosto states that ‘l’ippogrifo per l’aria a sí gran corso,/che l’aquila e il valcon vola assai meno’ (OF, XXXIII, xcvi) [the hippogriff flies such a large distance that the eagle and falcon cannot fly as far]. In scholarship, the hippogriff is often compared to Pegasus, however ‘a horse that is dragonish rather than merely winged seems better suited to fight’ (Manguel 2019, 145), showing the hippogriff’s strength. Although this comparison does not appear in the text, we see Ariosto emphasising the uniqueness of the hippogriff in comparison to other animals, for example, ‘non va per l’aria altro animal sí snello,/che di velocità gli fosse uguale’ (OF, VI, xviii) [no other avian animal so slender can match its speed], showing that the hippogriff is more suited to travel than any other animal.
This leads scholars to state that the hippogriff can be considered as ‘rather an airplane than a flying horse’ (Grant 1935, 19), and regarding its ability to travel quickly, this is an accurate description. However, Ariosto does make it clear that hippogriff is an animal, and he creates a dichotomy between the hippogriff as a wild animal and a domesticated animal. This increases the hippogriff’s plausibility as it is a living being rather than a machine. We see the hippogriff as a wild animal as Ruggiero struggles to control it, having to hold its reins so that it does not fly away (OF, VI, xxiii). This is supported by the hippogriff’s reaction to the anthropomorphised trees on Alcina’s island; ‘per fuggir si rivolta, spaventato’ (OF, VI, xxvi) [turned back to flee, terrified]. However, we learn that the hippogriff is not granted permission to be a wild animal throughout the poem, as this makes it flighty and unpredictable. Ariosto therefore gives us scenes where we see the domestication of the hippogriff, for example ‘ma prima vuol che se gli faccia un morso,/con che lo volga, e gli raffreni il corso’ (OF, X, lxvi) [but first he wants Logistilla to fashion a bridle to control its course] shows Astolfo turning to the magical characters to learn how to control the hippogriff. We then see Ruggiero learning how to steer the hippogriff, which is often likened to learning how to fly an aeroplane (Grant 1935, 23). However, we do still see the risk that the hippogriff will fly away afterwards, ‘salia in aria a piú libero corso’ (OF, XI, xiii) [it rose into the air on a more free course], therefore rather than becoming a machine, we see that ‘pairing griffins with horses, even in poetry, lends the imaginary beast the factual reality of a domestic animal.’ (Manguel 2019, 144)
As the hippogriff is well-suited to travel, Ariosto uses it in order to spatially organise his poem, as ‘multiple locations and a vast canvas are, in effect, essential to accommodate the
mobility of the epic romance heroes’ (Mac Carthy 2007, 398). The hippogriff’s flight allows Ariosto to take his heroes on long international journeys, for example, how ‘ond’era in Francia ritornato,/e girato da l’India all’Inghilterra’ (OF, XXII, xxiv) [he went from India to England to reach France]. From this, we can see that although Ariosto himself did not travel, he was ‘infected by the wayfaring spirit and the sense of ‘wonder’ and ‘marvel’ of his more adventurous contemporaries’ (Mac Carthy 2007, 398), which is reflected in Ruggiero and the hippogriff leaving Europe and arriving on Alcina’s island. In this episode, we can see Ariosto exploring both real and imaginary destinations as he blends the geographically real with the fantastic. The grandeur of her island, implied by ‘a me par oro, poi che sí risplende’ (OF, VI, lix) [to me it seemed gold due to how it shone], gives the island a mysterious and magical impression. This implies fantasy, while Ariosto also grounds it in reality by stating it is adorned with ‘le piú rare gemme di Levante’ (OF, VI, lxxi) [the rarest gems of the Levant], combining the fantasy with a geographical region. These descriptions show that it is impossible in Ariosto’s text to separate the real from the imagined and they often depend on one another to make a landscape exist (Westphal 2011, 91). It becomes harder to separate the geographically realistic travel from the imaginary elements as the hippogriff is the key to travel in the poem; many of the journeys in the poem are inspired by characters chasing the hippogriff, for example, Pinabello chases the hippogriff to Atlante’s castle in order to rescue his lover (OF, II, xl-xli). Furthermore, the hippogriff represents a collection of travel stories, as we see Astolfo recounting his experience of Alcina’s island upon seeing the hippogriff; for example, it inspires the memory of ‘quel giorno in India lo provò’ (OF, XXII, xxvii) [he had experienced it that day in India]. This implies that the hippogriff’s association with travel can hold memory and infuse memory into the space, which is ‘what remains after the historical event’ (Westphal 2011, 28), showing that the hippogriff, while imagined, is the key to the memory of travel.
It is therefore important to consider how Ariosto makes the hippogriff plausible, considering it is so important to his travel narrative. At first, the hippogriff is considered Ariosto’s most fantastic element, however in the end Ariosto ensures it is the most believable (Partington 2004, 17). Ariosto specifies that ‘non è finto il destrier, ma naturale’ (OF, IV, xviii) [the winged horse is not false, but real] as he needs this for the logic of his poem. This is plausible as Ariosto describes the hippogriff as a horse here, therefore in language with which his reader is familiar. Moreover, we see that Ariosto only takes the hippogriff to locations that could appear on earth. Notably, when Astolfo goes to hell, he leaves the hippogriff tied to a tree (OF, XXXIV, vi). By only having one non-natural element in the scene, Ariosto maintains the plausibility; he ‘continually shifts between what may be real and what may be imaginary and thus creates a ‘magical realism’ (Farnetti 2003, 96), rather than creating an entirely imagined scene. This therefore makes the hippogriff the more believable element, for example Pinabello deems the hippogriff more plausible than a flying man (OF, II, xxxix). The hippogriff is Ariosto’s practical solution to the problem of air travel that he needs to solve for the spatial logic of his poem (Grant 1935, 23), and while hippogriff travel is described as ‘strana, inusitata e nuova’ (OF, II, xlvi) [strange, uncommon and new], it is never described as unbelievable.
'A space apart from which to view it afresh’ (Mac Carthy 2009, 73): Ariosto's moon
Turning now to the poem’s main focus, Astolfo’s trip to the moon, an unlikely journey. This episode is central to the poem as it summarises the poem’s principal crisis, Orlando’s
madness, and allows Ariosto to criticise the courts for which he writes (Mac Carthy 2009, 71). However, Ariosto distances himself from the world he criticises, therefore he connects this episode to literary sources to create this distance from the known world. For example, there are Dantean echoes throughout the canto; St John tells Astolfo that he needs to undertake the journey to the moon (OF, XXXIV, lxvii) and guides him throughout the journey. Astolfo, like Dante, ‘chiede alla guida’ (OF, XXXIV, lxxvi) [asks the guide], as he is unable to understand the function of the moon independently, which reflects the idea that Ariosto’s moon is an ‘allegorical substitute for the complex theory and metaphysics’ of the Commedia (Wooten 1982, 745), as Dante[3] and Astolfo are both guided. We can see that Astolfo, needing assistance in understanding the moon’s metaphors displays ‘the inability characteristic of human beings to see the world around them in its true colours’ (Lambert 2002, 25), which implies that humans are unable to truly see everything, and therefore sight, although a dominant sense, cannot fully interpret the world that Astolfo sees.
However, Astolfo can interpret the moon in relation to the earth, his known world, and we see the comparison between the earth and the moon. Through this perspective Ariosto ‘distorts the world we take for granted in order to create a space apart from which to view it afresh’ (Mac Carthy 2009, 73). In the text, we see Astolfo’s expectation of the moon; he considers it ‘uguale, o minor poco’ (OF, XXXIV, lxx) [equal, or slightly smaller] to the earth in size. However, in reality he notes that the ‘paese appresso era sí grande’ (OF, XXXIV, lxxi) [nearby land was so big]. Ariosto, in showing this change of perspective, is exploring how sight is not always reliable, despite it being dominant in a visual culture. Although it looks like the earth, we see that this is a different landscape; there are ‘altri fiumi, altri laghi’ (OF, XXXIV, lxxii) [other rivers, other lakes], which emphasises the difference from earth. Although the moon has a similar landscape to earth, it is a ‘mirror which faithfully renders all the terrestrial lies’ (Lambert 2002, 26). We see the moon as a reflection of what Ariosto considers to be problematic on earth, therefore a figurative, rather than literal, representation of an unexplored location. This is explored through the intangible lost objects that land on the moon; fame, broken promises, ‘vani desidèri’ (OF, XXXIV, lxxv) [vain desires], disingenuous prayers. From this, it is clear that the objects, tangible or conceptual, on the moon are related metaphorically to what has been lost on earth, rather than purely physical losses (Lambert 2002, 24). Ariosto allows his reader to believe the physical manifestations of these losses that they are unable to see, in order to distance himself from, and therefore criticise, his contemporary society. He ‘rispecchia la crisi de la nobilità e l’ascesa della borghesia nell’epoca rinascimentale’ (Cernigliario Tsouroula 2011, 177) [reflects the crisis in the nobility and the rise of the bourgeoisie of the Renaissance period] by illustrating some of the behaviour he condemns in the form of lost objects. For example, we see the bribes that princes discarded, or the service lost on ‘misere corti’ (OF, XXXIV, lxxix) [graceless courts], implying that Ariosto is living in a society which functions based on favours and bribes within the courts. By presenting the concept of bribery as a physical object that can be lost, Ariosto makes it more tangible, and therefore he is able to critique what he believes to be an unjust society in comprehensible terms, while maintaining distance from directly criticising the Renaissance courts. This illustrates that although the moon is a location that is inaccessible by sight, as it reflects the earth both in landscape and in metaphorical meaning, the moon is not so distant from the world known to Ariosto’s readers.
Furthermore, Ariosto’s moon explores the relationship between the function of the moon and human life on earth. We see from the depiction of the Fates that the lunar world has a direct effect on
human life, as the Fates are spinning human lives and afterlives in their skeins (Wooten 1982, 744); the word ‘lavor’ (OF, XXXIV, lxxxix)[work] illustrates how this is an active rapport and an active sense of control between the earth and the moon. They select the prettiest skeins for ‘ornamento/ del paradiso’ (OF, XXXIV, xc) [decorating Paradise], while the rest are condemned to Hell. This shows not only how the moon influences earth rather than simply reflecting it, but shows that on the moon, human afterlives are used for an almost aesthetic purpose, showing that humans are not at the centre of the universe. This reflects the bribes given to princes that end up on the moon (OF, XXXIV, lxxvii), as these are given, but do not have much purpose due to the graceless nature of the courts which receive them, implying that the gifts only have a superficial purpose, which Ariosto criticises. This rapport between the earth and the moon is further explored through the River Lethe, which Ariosto takes from ‘cultural sources that see [the moon] as the earth’s equal but opposite (Mac Carthy 2009, 73). Lethe is taken from mythology rather than geography and therefore we are seeing a depiction of a mythical location which has control over human afterlives. Lethe is the river that swallows names of people, destining them to oblivion (OF, XXXV, XIV). Therefore, it is a place that many should ‘temer’ (OF, XXXV, xxii) [fear], implying that the relationship between humanity and the moon is not peaceful and often antagonistic, which is further reflected in images of ruin and destruction which is seen on the moon. The moon is a representation of human errors, caused by ‘un difetto di funzionamento della logica e della ragione’ (Cernigliario Tsouroula 2011, 179) [a flaw in the functioning of logic and reason], and this is seen in the ‘ruine di cittadi e di castella’ (OF, XXXIV, lxxix) [ruins of cities and castles] that can be found on the moon as a result of failed plots. This therefore shows not only that the ethereality of the moon is not always a positive force, but also that through the connection between the earth and the moon, human failures cause destruction of landscapes, which Calvino further explores in his work.
‘A dream born out of the unliveable cities we know’ (Calvino 1983, 40): Le città e il cielo
Regarding Calvino’s cities in the sky, he uses Ariosto’s structure of the moon in order to criticise his own contemporary society. It can be argued that Calvino turns towards the sky due to developments in air travel which imply that ‘space has become caught between a logic of partition and a culture of the border’ (Westphal 2011, 25) as technological developments brought the borders between land and air closer to each other. However, rather than discussing the border between land and air, Calvino uses this with an ecocritical viewpoint. This is because literature can be ‘a potential instrument for ethical and environmental education, thus orienting human interactions with the more-than-human environment’ (Iovino 2013, 114), reflecting Ariosto’s exploration of the rapport between humans and their environment. Calvino discusses the relationship between humans and the natural landscape, illustrating how humans are destroying the earth, which is additionally reflected in some of the conversations between Polo and Khan. We see, for example, that in the city of Perinzia, the true horror is the city’s inhabitants; the worst part of the city is the ‘urli gutturali [che] si levano dalle cantine e dai granai, dove le famiglie nascondono i figli con tre teste o con sei gambe’ (Calvino 2022, 140) [guttural screams which come from the basements and barns where families hide children with three heads or six legs]. From an ecocritical perspective, this can be seen as an Ariosto-inspired exploration of ‘la crisi della borghesia e del capitalismo borghese dell’epoca contemporanea’ (Cernigliario Tsouroula 2011, 177) [the crisis of the bourgeoisie and bourgeois capitalism of the contemporary era], as he is exploring the hidden horror that humanity can be in relation to the earth.
This is further reflected in the cities of Tecla, Trude and Olinda which can be seen as a criticism of over-industrialisation. The first of these cities, Tecla, is a city in continuous construction; it is never finished. This implies that ‘cities are rapacious consumers of energy and raw materials (Towers 2022, 476-7), which is seen in the sentence ‘chi arriva a Tecla, poco vede della città, dietro gli steccati di tavole, i ripari di tela di sacco’ (Calvino 2022, 124) [those who arrive in Tecla see very little of the city behind the boarded fences, the canvas sack repairs]. The start of this chapter is a very elongated sentence which lists building materials, prompting the question ‘perché la costruzione di Tecla continua così a lungo?’ (ibid) [why has the construction of Tecla continued for so long?] This a criticism of the constant human intervention in the world; nothing in Tecla gets destroyed, but this is not an advantage as the project remains unfinished. Through Tecla, we can see that Calvino is criticising the industrialisation of everything in the world, as this never-ending construction project is ‘una notte stellata’ (ibid) [a starry night], implying that humans are industrialising even the world’s most natural phenomena. The following city, Trude, can also reflect this ecocritical view, as it is in fact multiple cities that look ‘uguale punto per punto’ (ibid, 125) [identical point by point], implying that this over-industrialisation leaves the world without variation. Finally, Calvino presents a contrast to this over-industrialisation through the city of Olinda. This city is left to its natural function as Calvino implies it grows of its own accord in concentric circles; ‘ecco che diventa una città a grandezza naturale’ (ibid, 126) [here is what becomes a naturally growing city]. By implying that Olinda grows by itself, this is a living city without human intervention, therefore showing a landscape that goes beyond the idea that ‘only humans are endowed with an intrinsic ethical value, whereas nonhuman nature and life are considered as mere instruments’ (Iovino 2013, 116), as humans do not use the city of Olinda for their own purposes.
Similar to how Ariosto’s Fates show that the function of the moon causes effects on humans, Calvino shows how the celestial landscape has an effect on the terrestrial landscape of Kublai Khan’s empire. This can be seen through the city of Olinda. We see that Olinda ‘non è certo la sola città a crescere in cerchi concentrici’ (Calvino 2022, 126) [is certainly not the only city to grow in concentric circles], foreshadowing the similarities between Olinda and one of the cities in Kublai Khan’s atlas. As it grows, Olinda maintains the old city walls. Therefore, nothing is wasted, but nothing is innovated. This is seen as a criticism of overproduction, as Olinda continues to reproduce itself, but nothing is developed. Although this one of Marco Polo’s imaginary cities, we see that Calvino is using Olinda ‘per distanziare la materia offerta al narratore dalla realtà contemporanea’ (Cernigliario Tsouroula 2011, 190) [to distance the material offered to the narrator from their contemporary reality], making it easier to critique. There is a reflection of Olinda in Kublai Khan’s atlas (Calvino 2022, 133), which shows how there is a mirroring between the imagined city and tangible geography, between the celestial and terrestrial landscapes. This not only shows the connection between the two geographies, but also shows a criticism of overproduction on earth, shown at a distance from a criticism of the imagined Olinda.
Furthermore, Bersabea is an imagined city that uses Ariosto’s lunar structure to present an ecocritical world view. We see how ‘the structure of our interpersonal relationships or that of our learning processes mirror the organization of the biosphere’ (Iovino 2013, 113), that is to say that
humans affect the world. This ecocriticism begins with the knowledge that ‘sospesa in cielo esista un’altra Bersabea’ (Calvino 2022, 109) [suspended in the sky there is another Bersabea], which is reminiscent of Ariosto’s moon. Calvino is using Ariosto’s idea of the celestial sphere reflecting the earth, and he uses this to explore how humans are part of nature, not separate or more important than nature. Through this structure, we see how Calvino ‘[gives] voice to the condition of dislocation that modern industrial society has produced in relation to nature’ (Towers 2022, 478) and this can be seen in how the inhabitants of Bersabea view riches, showing a misplaced attitude towards them from an environmental perspective. At first the inhabitants of Bersabea ‘tengono in onore tutto ciò che evoca loro la città celeste’ [out of pride they keep things that call to mind their celestial city] such as precious metals and rare gemstones (Calvino 2022, 109). This image of the riches in the celestial Bersabea, leading it to be described as ‘una città-gioello’ (ibid) [a jewelled city] could reflect the riches that finish on Ariosto’s moon. However, we see Calvino presenting a contrast to Ariosto’s structure; Calvino’s terrestrial Bersabea is built of the ‘Tesoro delle cose buttate via’ (ibid, 110) [treasure of things that have been thrown away]. This is a more active version of Ariosto’s moon as these objects were not passively lost but discarded. This is Calvino’s ecocriticism; describing them as treasures assigns value to them, therefore highlighting and criticising a disposable lifestyle, which he sees from an aerial perspective, as he writes that people throw away objects of value as if they are valueless. We see here the presence of Ariosto in Calvino’s writing; Ariosto used his moon ‘as a platform for which to study earth from a different perspective’ (Mac Carthy 2009, 73) and show his criticism of earth. Calvino uses the distance from the sky to discuss ‘the garbage which spreads outside the city day by day’ (Calvino 1983, 37). This criticism is continued in the following city, Leonia, seen by the linguistic repetition from Bersabea in the line ‘cose che ogni giorno vengono buttate via per far posto alle nuove’ (Calvino 2022, 111) [things that are thrown away every day to make space for the new]. Similar to how Ariosto uses the distance from the moon to criticise the Renaissance courts who took bribes, Calvino uses the distance from imagined cities in the sky to criticise the fast-paced disposable lifestyle that is synonymous with city life. In his text, this is explored through the notion that humans are creating a hell on earth; the two Bersabeas are described as ‘una celeste e una infernale’ (ibid, 110) [one heavenly and one hellish] because the waste created by throwing items away shows that humans are creating hell by intervening in the natural landscape. This is reflected in the final conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan where Polo states that ‘l’inferno che abitiamo tutti i giorni, che formiano stando insieme’ (ibid, 160) [the hell in which we live every day, that we shape together]. Calvino is presenting an ecocritical world view; all humans are responsible for the destruction of the world through over-industrialisation and disposable lifestyles, which has rendered the natural world ‘a dream born out of the unliveable cities we know’ (Calvino 1983, 40), portrayed through a travelogue of imagined cities.
Conclusion
Thus, Ariosto and Calvino explore the notion that one does not need to see something in order for it to exist by creating a travelogue in which the reader is able to believe in what they have not seen. For Ariosto, he makes the hippogriff a plausible, if not perfect, method of transport for the world tour on which his characters embark. The hippogriff is the inspiration for much of the travel across the globe in Ariosto’s poem, however, notably the hippogriff never enters the unvisitable destinations in the poem, for example Hell. Calvino, similarly, writes about unvisitable destinations, as they are invisible cities. However, he makes these plausible by placing the emphasis on the metaphors of these cities, they are believable as they represent human emotions. This imagined travel, in both texts, is used to create distance from Ariosto and Calvino’s known worlds, so that they are able to critique them. Ariosto uses the structure of the moon, where lost objects are found, to criticise how Renaissance courts accept bribes. Therefore, the moon, as a reflection of earth, functions as a criticism of corruption. For Calvino, he uses his cities in the sky in order to criticise how city living leads to a disposable lifestyle. He uses comparable structures to Ariosto’s moon to present an ecocritical world view, condemning over-industrialisation and the slow destruction of the earth. To draw these conclusions, I examined the places and modes of transport unlikely to be seen by readers and how Ariosto and Calvino make them plausible. I have particularly focused on how travel by air and by imagination is explored in these narratives. However, these are not the only methods of travel and future research into Ariosto and Calvino’s travel narratives could focus on travel by land or sea. Furthermore, this research has taken the standpoint that ocularcentrism has been the primary outlook through which we have seen travel since the Italian Renaissance. Although this research has proved that Ariosto and Calvino reject this and present anti-ocularcentric perspectives, as they are two prolific writers in the Italian canon, it may be pertinent to question which senses are generally used to present travel narratives and how writers consider the remaining senses in travel literature.
Bibliography
Alighieri, Dante. 1961. Inferno. Translated by John D. Sinclair. 3 vols. Vol. 1.The Divine
Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ariosto, Ludovico. 1992a. Orlando Furioso [The Frenzy of Orlando]. Vol. 2. Turin: Einaudi.
---. 1992b. Orlando Furioso [The Frenzy of Orlando]. Vol. 1. Turin: Einaudi.
Birringer, Johannes. 1989. "Invisible cities/transcultural images." Performing Arts Journal 11
(3): 120-138.
Bondanella, Peter. 2003. "Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco : postmodern masters." In The
Cambridge Companion to The Italian Novel, Cambridge, edited by Peter Bondanella, 168-181. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Calvino, Italo. 1983. "Italo Calvino on" Invisible Cities"." Columbia: A Journal of Literature
and Art: 37-42. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41806854.
---. 2022. Le città invisibili [Invisible Cities]. Milan: Oscar Moderni.
Cernigliario Tsouroula, Maria Angela. 2011. "Ariosto e Calvino: due artisti “socialmente
impegnati” [Ariosto and Calvino: two politically motivated artists]." In Il «sapore arisostesco» in Calvino [Hints of Ariosto in Calvino], 176-192. Rome: Edizioni progetto cultura.
Farnetti, Monica. 2003. "Ariosto: Landscape Artist." In Ariosto Today: Contemporary
Perspectives, edited by Massimo Ciavolella and Roberto Fedi Donald Beecher, 93-105. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Grant, A. J. 1935. "ARIOSTO." History 20 (77): 18-28. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24401390.
Iovino, Serenella. 2013. "Ecocriticism, Cultural Evolutionism, and Ecologies of Mind: Notes
on Calvino’s Cosmicomics." COSMO 2: 114-124.
Johnson, Bruce. 2003. "Writing noise; noisy writing:‘The eyes no longer have to do their
work’." Proceedings of the International Conference of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, Melbourne, March 19-23 2003.
Kavanagh, Donncha. 2013. "The Limits of Visualisation: Ocularcentrism and Organization."
The Routledge Companion to Visual Organisation, edited by S. Warren and J. Schroeder Bell, 1-26. London: Routledge. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Donncha-Kavanagh/publication/261758382_The_Limits_of_Visualisation_Ocularcentrism_and_Organization/links/53e10cfd0cf24f90ff60d64e/The-Limits-of-Visualisation-Ocularcentrism-and-Organization.pdf.
Lambert, Ladina Bezzola. 2002. "How Metaphors Matter: Astolfo’s Lunar Journey in the
Orlando furioso." Imagining the Unimaginable: The poetics of Early Modern astronomy, 23-31. Amsterdam: Rodopi. https://books.google.ie/books?hl=en&lr=&id=jouuW3wUhYsC&oi=fnd&pg=PP12&dq=ariosto+moon+lost+things&ots=pY-De24yaK&sig=0mKyXBOTQY-AuM6RXP_vhr5Xrbo&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=ariosto%20moon%20lost%20things&f=false.
Mac Carthy, Ita. 2007. "Ariosto the traveller." Modern Language Review 102 (2): 397-409.
---. 2009. "Ariosto the lunar traveller." Modern Language Review 104 (1): 71-82.
Macpherson, Hannah. 2006. "Landscape’s ocular-centrism–and beyond." From landscape
research to landscape planning: Aspects of integration, education and application, edited by Gunther Tress Bärbel Tress, Gary Fry and Paul Opdam, 95-105. Dordrecht: Springer.
Mandelbaum, Michael. 1982. "Vietnam: The Television War." Daedalus 111 (4): 157-169.
Manguel, Alberto. 2019. "The Hippogriff." In Fabulous Monsters: Dracula, Alice, Superman
and Other Literary Friends, 143-6. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Milanini, Claudio. 1990. "Arte combinatoria e geografia mentale: Il castello dei destini
incrociati e Le città invisibili [Combinatorial art and mental geography: The Castle of Crossed Destinies and Invisible Cities]." In L’utopia discontinua: Saggio su Italo Calvino [Discontinuous Utopia: Essays about Italo Calvino], 127-147. Milan: Garzanti
Partington, Alan. 2004. "Corpora and discourse, a most congruous beast." Corpora and
discourse 1: 11-20.
Re, Lucia. 2003. "Ariosto and Calvino: The Adventures of a Reader." In Ariosto Today:
Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Massimo Ciavolella and Roberto Fedi Donald Beecher, 211-233. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Towers, Joel. 2022. "Make Them Endure, Give Them Space: Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino."
Social Research: An International Quarterly 89 (2): 469-481.
Westphal, Bertrand. 2011. Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces. Translated by Robert T.
Tally Jr. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wooten, John. 1982. "From Purgatory to the Paradise of Fools: Dante, Ariosto, and Milton."
ELH 49 (4): 741-750. https://doi.org/10.2307/2872895. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2872895.
Notes
[1] This is discussed in further detail in the following paragraph [2] All translations are my own unless otherwise stated [3] ‘tu mi segui, e io sarò tua guida’ [‘you should follow me, and I shall by thy guide’] (Inferno, I, 113 trans. John D. Sinclair)