The Orlando Innamorato

This is the book that launched a thousand imitations. Written at the court of Ferrara in the 1480s, Matteo Maria Boiardo invented the Renaissance chivalric epic by fusing the martial world of Charlemagne's knights with the enchantments of Arthurian romance, and doing it all with a wit that still feels startlingly modern. The story follows Orlando, the greatest paladin of Christendom, undone entirely by his obsessive love for Angelica, the queen of Cathay, whose arrival at Charlemagne's court sends every knight into jealous frenzy. Wars are fought, horses are stolen, magicians scheme, and love remains as maddeningly unattainable as ever. Boiardo piles absurdity upon absurdity, yet somehow the whole mad enterprise becomes genuinely moving. He loves his foolish knights too much to simply mock them. The result is an inexhaustible, frequently hilarious epic that knows exactly how ridiculous the code of chivalry is, and how beautiful too. This is the ur-text that Ariosto and Tasso built upon, the Renaissance romance that Milton called "the fairest of her Sex." It demands patience, but the rewards are vast for readers who want literature that is both profound and enormous fun.