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The Third Book of the Orlando Innamorato; Notes on the Venetian Edition Antonio Franceschetti It is well known that the incomplete third book of the Orlando Innamorato was published twice in 1495, soon after the death of Matteo Maria Boiardo (in Reggio Emilia on Decem- ber 19, 1494): once in Scandiano by Pellegrino de' Pasquali, together with the other two books of the poem, perhaps on the initiative of Taddea Boiardo, the poet's widow;^ once in Venice by Simone Bevilacqua da Pavia, as El fin del Inamoramento dOrlando, contain- ing the first eight cantos and omitting the twenty- six remaining octaves of the ninth. Un- fortunately, none of the 1250 copies of the Scandiano edition - supposedly the first edition of the complete work- is extant, and only an incomplete incunabulum of the Venetian edi- tion remains in the Staatsbibliothek of Munich. But some peculiarities of this last book are worth mentioning. Boiardo scholars were rather skeptical about this edition until Augusto Campana, who had examined it, showed its authenticity in an appendix to the Zottoli edition of the com- plete works of the poet. There he also published sixteen octaves which replace, in three different passages, eighteen others from the text as traditionally known; nevertheless, one cannot possibly doubt that they are a variant of the author, since "assai difficilmente pos- sono essere attribuite al Boiardo," as Zottoli immediately pointed out (p. 769). Not only are the poor lines extremely inferior to the average standard of the poem, but also the first octave, at the beginning of canto I, shows that kind of religious invocation ("La summa verità e lo splendore / del chiaro lume del fiol de Dio ..."), traditional of the cantari, which is absolutely foreign to Boiardo's use. One may wonder how it happened that such substitutions took place. Examining the two texts, there can be but one possible answer: the printer had at hand a manuscript, or a book, either containing pages so badly damaged that it was impossible for him to read them, or completely missing. The second case seems to be more probable because it would be difficult to imagine that the source used was so completely unintelligible in three places as to prevent the printer from following it at least vaguely. The new octaves are in logical sequence to what precedes and what follows in Boiardo's story, but bear no relation whatsoever with his own original ones. In the first substitution (I, 1-4, which replaces Boiardo's III, i, 1-6), after the religious invocation already mentioned, we find a reference to the episode of Orlando among the Naiads in the River of Laughter, which concluded the second book of the poem (II, xxxi, 43-8); on the contrary, the original has nothing of the kind, but instead, after two octaves in which Boiardo rejoices for the end of the war of Ferrara (1482-84), announces that **la bella istoria" will continue describing the bat- tles and **il triomfale onore" of Charlemagne, "le prodezze fatte per amore" of Orlando, the death of Rugiero betrayed by Gano di Maganza, and, in general, "strane aventure e battaglie amorose, / quando virtu te al bon tempo fioriva." After this, Boiardo introduces Mandricardo without mentioning that he was son of Agricane (this was already said in II, iii, 8, where he appears in the poem for the first time; the reader will, however, be re- minded of the fact shortly afterwards [ill, i, 9]); he just says that no knight ever lived "di lui pill franco e piii gagliardo e fiero," adding that he was "tanto superbo et inumano / che 10 sopra alcun non volse segnoria, / che non fosse in battaglia esperto e forte: / a tutti gli altri facea dar la morte." In the new octaves, instead, not only are we told that "Mandrucardo" was son of Agricane, who had been killed by Orlando for Angelica's love, but we also find an interesting difference; since the beginning of Boiardo's octave 7 ("Onde fo il regno tut- to disertato, / abandonb ciascuno il suo paese") does not refer clearly to Mandricardo's kingdom, that is Tartaria, the printer, or whoever wrote those lines, imagined the conquest of foreign countries whose inhabitants the young king "presi e ligati ... se li menava / per modo tal ch'ognuno el biastimava," The second substitution (I, 53-8, replacing III, i, 55-60) concerns Mandricardo's fight with Malapresa, the giant "rio ladrone" who keeps assaulting the "palagio del verziero" where the son of Agricane spends the night after his duel with Gradasso, before trying the conquest of Hector's armour. Here too it is clear that the printer had no knowledge of the original lines. After octaves 53-4 (51-2 in the Venetian edition) which describe both the arrival of Mandricardo and the damsel who accompanies him at the palace, and the dwarf who from a window on the top of the door watches for Malapresa, Boiardo's text contin- ues with the courteous reception of the guests and Mandricardo's happy dinner with the lady of the palace; only in octave 57 is the dinner interrupted by the arrival of Malapresa, whom the knight faces in octave 60. In the Venetian edition, instead, the giant appears immediately and all the six octaves describe his fight with Mandricardo; then, reading in the original octave 61 that Malapresa was "per questo colpo ... adirato," the author of the substitution imagined that the knight struck his helmet so strongly "che inchinar lo fece li davante /poco mancando ch'el non cascb in terra" (octave 58), while according to Boiardo Mandricardo's strokes were actually two, the first cutting "di netto" the iron chain from the giant's club, the second dividing his shield in two parts. The last substitution (octaves 46-51 of canto VI) concerns the discussion of Mandricardo and Gradasso about which one of the two is better entitled to own, eventually, Orlando's sword, Durindana, their consequent fight in the presence of Rugiero, and the following arrival of Brandimarte and Fiordelisa. As one can see, the passage is rather a complicated one, even if the details are clear from what precedes and follows in the poem, and we can give credit to the Venetian editor for his skill in joining the different parts. Mandricardo, who acquired Hector's armour, has no sword because the one which originally belonged to the Trojan hero, that is Durindana, is now in Orlando's hands; in III, ii, 37 he swore not to use any other until his conquest of the right one from the Christian knight. On hearing this, Gradasso cannot restrain himself from mentioning that he started a big war for the conquest of Durindana (as described, with interruptions of several other episodes, in the first seven cantos of the first book of the poem) and would never give up his right to have it. This leads the two knights to fight and, since Mandricardo has no other weapon, they use two tree branches. The most remarkable difference in the two texts concerns their fight: while the noble count of Scandiano underlines the comical side of this "gioco ... de molinari e de asini" which makes Rugiero laugh, the Venetian edition takes such duel very seriously, indulging in the description of the valiant strokes. Nevertheless, the author of the new octaves too sees how useless is the fight for something that they do not yet possess, commenting that the two "fan rason sencia I'osto," since Orlando will not give up his sword so easily. This idea, more ironically expressed in Rugiero's words to Brandi- marte in the original version ("Per la spata de Orlando, che non hano, / e forse non sono 11 anco per avère, / tal bastonate da ciechi se dano, / che pietà me ne vien pur a vedere"), de- rived probably from something said in octave 53 to the two fighters by Brandimarte, who tries to separate them and convinces them to go with him to free Orlando, captive of the Naiads: "si ve ha tolto I'ira il fren di mano, / che per niente combattete in vano." In conclusion, one can say that, if the author of the new octaves was certainly not a great poet, he was not a simpleton, and tried his best to be as close as possible to what he presumed the original to be, and to make his lines flow consequently and logically in the context of the poem. It is also clear that he could quite easily fill the blanks with fewer than six octaves; but in the effort to be as faithful as possible to the original, he preferred to maintain the same number which Boiardo himself had written. And this proves that he knew exactly how many octaves were missing from the appearance of the manuscript or incunabulum which he had in his hands. If at the beginning of the first canto he wrote only four to replace the six of the original, there must be a specific reason: it is this as- pect of the problem that I shall try to examine next. It is impossible to say for sure if the Venetian editor was using the Scandiano incunabu- lum or a manuscript; however, there is a major point in favor of the second hypothesis. If the new octaves are to be explained as a result of the loss of some pages, the second and third groups indicate clearly that the source had three octaves on each side of the page. This number is further confirmed when we consider that the last eight complete cantos of the Innamorato always contain a number of octaves divisible by three.

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