duced into mathematics for the first time the notion of
fractional exponents.
Orichovius See ORZECHOWSKI, STANISŁAW
Orlando furioso The epic written by Ludovico ARIOSTO
continuing the story begun in the Orlando innamorato of
BOIARDO. The poem is structurally very elaborate, often
seeming to be a tangled web of adventures sustained only
by the tremendous energy of Ariosto’s narrative, but three
main strands of story are clearly discernible: the madness
of the hero Orlando, chief of Charlemagne’s paladins, on
account of his love for the beautiful princess Angelica; the
wars between Christians and Saracens; and the love story
of Ruggiero and Bradamante, destined to marry and found
the house of Este (see ESTE FAMILY), in whose service Ar-
iosto passed his life and in whose celebration the poem is
ostensibly written.
Orlando furioso appeared in three editions during
Ariosto’s lifetime (1516, 1521, 1532), and in its final form
comprised 46 cantos written in ottava rima. This third edi-
tion, in particular, reveals the influence of Pietro BEMBOin
matters of language and style. The poem successfully
welds together medieval chivalric and folk traditions with
humanistic neoclassicism to form a complex whole of
which the dominant note is one of brilliant gaiety. (This
gaiety is excellently captured in the English translation
(1591) by Sir John HARINGTON.) It was immediately ac-
cepted as a classic, and during the late 16th-century con-
troversy on EPICit became the representative of one form
of the genre against the more unified concept exemplifed
in Tasso’s GERUSALEMME LIBERATA.
Orlando furioso soon achieved a following beyond
Italy, with a Spanish version in 1549 and a French prose
version in 1555. Sir John Harington’s translation “in Eng-
lish heroical verse” has been edited by Robert McNulty
and published with plates from the 1591 edition (Oxford,
U.K., 1972). Modern prose translations have been made
by A. H. Gilbert (New York, 3 vols, 1954) and by Guido
Waldman; the latter, which first appeared in 1974, was
reissued in the World’s Classics series (Oxford, U.K.,
1983). A verse translation by B. Reynolds was published
by Penguin (Harmondsworth, U.K., 1975).
Further reading: Peter V. Marinelli, Ariosto and
Boiardo: The Origins of Orlando Furioso (Columbia, Mo.:
University of Missouri Press, 1987).
Orlando innamorato See BOIARDO, MATTEO MARIA
Orley, Bernard van (c. 1492–1542) Netherlands painter
and designer of tapestries and stained glass
Trained by his father Valentin van Orley, Bernard was prin-
cipally active in his native city of Brussels. In 1515 he was
commissioned to paint portraits of the children of Philip
the Handsome for presentation to the king of Denmark.
Three years later he was formally appointed a court
painter to the regent, MARGARET OF AUSTRIA. In 1530 he
accepted a similar position from her successor, MARY OF
HUNGARY. Van Orley was influenced by the Italianate
repertory of Jan Gossaert and by Dürer, whom he met in
1520/21. Although he does not appear to have visited
Italy, he appropriated motifs from a range of Italian prints
and was personally familiar with the Raphael cartoons for
the Sistine Chapel, which were woven into tapestries in
Brussels between 1514 and 1519. There is a tension in van
Orley’s work, between the northern naturalistic tradition
in which he was principally trained and the Italianate
schooling which he received as a young painter. For ex-
ample, in his Job altarpiece (1521; Brussels), the careful
observation of individual details actually makes the over-
all composition more difficult to read as a single entity. By
contrast, the manificent landscape vistas in van Orley’s ta-
pestry cycle of the Hunts of Maximilian (c. 1550; Paris) be-
long beside the paintings of Pieter BRUEGHEL as major
monuments of the Netherlandish landscape tradition. See
Plate XVIOrpheus In classical legend, a Thracian poet who was
given a lyre by APOLLOand taught by the MUSESto play it
so exquisitely that wild animals, and even inanimate trees
and rocks, were drawn to its sound. When his wife Eury-
dice died of a snake bite, Orpheus journeyed to Hades,
hoping to win her back by his music; this he succeeded in
doing, but lost her forever when he broke the conditions
imposed upon him and looked back at her before they had
reached the upper world. Grief then led him to fall foul of
the maenads, who tore him to pieces in their frenzied wor-
ship of BACCHUS.
There are several elements in this story attractive to
graphic artists, but the “Orpheus and the animals” theme
gained particular favor. Allegorically interpreted, it
demonstrated the power of art to subdue nature. It also af-
forded scope for depicting an exotic assemblage of crea-
tures, a kind of pagan Garden of Eden in which no
creature injures or preys upon another. The human figures
predominate in Giovanni BELLINI’s treatment of the theme
(Widener Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washing-
ton), but are totally overwhelmed by the fauna and the
landscape in the numerous versions by the mannerist Roe-
lant SAVERY.
As the supposed author of the Orphic hymns and
source of the mystic cult of Orphism in ancient Greece,
Orpheus was a subject of intense interest to the Florentine
Neoplatonists. PICO DELLA MIRANDOLAin De hominis digni-
tate states his belief that the Orphic hymns contain pro-
found religious revelations under the guise of poetic fables
and that the concealed truth is apparent only to a small
band of initiates. Both Pico and Lorenzo de’ MEDICI
(prompted by Plato’s exegesis in the Symposium) read theOOrrpphheeuuss 3 34499