Astolfo on the Moon: Orlando's lost wits in the Orlando Furioso

Among the most famous inventions of Italian literature is a valley on the Moon where everything people lose on Earth is gathered. Ludovico Ariosto imagined it in canto XXXIV of the Orlando Furioso, the chivalric poem published in Ferrara in 1516 and brought to its final form, in forty-six cantos, in 1532. The hero of the episode is the English paladin Astolfo, entrusted with a singular task: recovering Orlando's lost wits.

From the hippogriff to Elijah's chariot

Orlando has gone mad for love of Angelica, who has married the young Saracen Medoro. Astolfo, riding the hippogriff, the poem's winged horse, climbs as far as the Earthly Paradise, set on top of a very high mountain. There he is welcomed by Saint John the Evangelist, who explains that Orlando's madness is a divine punishment and that the remedy can be found only on the Moon.

To reach it the two board the chariot of fire that, according to the biblical account, had carried the prophet Elijah up to heaven, drawn by four horses redder than flame. Ariosto describes the Moon as a true world, with rivers, lakes, fields, cities and castles different from ours: an image that imaginatively anticipates what telescopes would suggest a century later.

The valley of lost things

In a lunar valley Astolfo finds every good that humans have wasted piled up together. There is the fame that time consumes, the prayers and vows of sinners, the tears and sighs of lovers, the time lost in gambling, the vain plans that never come true. There are also the gifts made to the powerful to win their favour, shown as hooks of gold and silver, and flattering praises, like burst cicadas.

Ariosto thus builds a subtle satire of the society of his time. Courts, princes, courtier men of letters, worldly ambitions: everything ends up there, reduced to its true substance. Notable is what is missing: madness. In the valley there is no trace of it, the poet observes ironically, because it all stays down here on Earth and never leaves.

The flasks of wits

Human wits, on the other hand, are plentiful. They are kept in flasks of various sizes, filled with a subtle liquid ready to evaporate if not tightly sealed. Each bears the name of its owner. Astolfo is amazed to find the wits of many he had thought very wise, and even discovers part of his own, which he hastens to take back by inhaling it.

Orlando's flask is the largest of all. Astolfo carries it back to Earth, and in canto XXXIX, with the help of his companions, makes the paladin breathe it in, and Orlando comes back to his senses. In canto XXXV, meanwhile, Saint John shows him another lunar wonder: an old man who throws people's names into the river of oblivion, from which a few swans rescue some.

The lunar episode is the place where Ariosto reflects most openly on the meaning of his own poem and on the power of poetry, able to save names from oblivion. Between unbridled fantasy and disenchanted wisdom, Astolfo's journey has given the Italian language an image that is still alive: whoever loses their reason, it is said, should go and look for it on the Moon.