Art Of The Day Weekly

Ariosto, a maker of dreams

FERRARA - Ariosto's brain was a mental geography, inhabited by knights and dragons, by exotic landscapes and desirable though unattainable women. His brain was cluttered with all of these elements when he wrote his best-seller of the Renaissance period, i>Orlando Furioso. Five hundred years after its first publication - on 22 April 1516 -, his native town dedicates a mirror-exhibition to the poet. It reflects his obsessions by plunging into the endless source of Italian art, and in particular in that of Ferrara which is known for a specific tendency towards excentricity, from Cossa up to the metaphysical period of de Chirico and Carrà. And we are not disappointed by the accumulation of strange images, of purple tunics by Cosmè Tura to the well-known monsters of Piero di Cosimo, including a viola da gamba with its belly decorated with distorted faces. This has to be placed in a context and a period when there was no television, no movies, no internet, nor press or magasines, which we are reminded of in the very lovely second title of the exhibition itself: "What Ariosto saw when he closed his eyes".
• Orlando Furioso, 500 anni at Palazzo dei Diamanti, 24 September 2016 to 8 January 2017.

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