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Rinaldo and Armida, Antonio Bellucci circa 1690.

Armida is the fictional character of a Saracen sorceress, created by the Italian late Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso.

Description

Rinaldo Enchanted by Armida, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.
The Rose from Armida's Garden by Marie Spartali Stillman (1894)

In Tasso's epic Jerusalem Delivered (Italian: Gerusalemme liberata), Rinaldo is a fierce and determined warrior who is also honorable and handsome. Armida has been sent to stop the Christians from completing their mission and is about to murder the sleeping soldier, but instead she falls in love. She creates an enchanted garden where she holds him a lovesick prisoner. Eventually Charles and Ubaldo, two of his fellow Crusaders, find him and hold a shield to his face, so he can see his image and remember who he is. Rinaldo barely can resist Armida's pleadings, but his comrades insist that he return to his Christian duties. At the close of the poem, when the pagans have lost the final battle, Rinaldo, remembering his promise to be her champion, prevents her from giving way to her suicidal impulses and offers to restore her to her lost throne. She gives in at this and like the other Saracen woman, Clorinda, earlier in the piece, becomes a Christian and his "handmaid".

Many painters and composers were inspired by Tasso's tale. The works that resulted often added or subtracted an element; Tasso himself continued to edit the story for years. In some versions, Armida is converted to Christianity, in others, she rages and destroys her own enchanted garden.

She occupies a place in the literature of abandoned women such as the tragic Dido, who committed suicide, and the evil Circe, whom Odysseus abandoned to return home, but she is considered by many to be more human and thus more compelling and sympathetic than either of them.

Armida by Jacques Blanchard, Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes.

In opera

The story of Armida and Rinaldo has been the basis for a number of operas:

On 1 May 2010, Rossini's Armida was performed and broadcast live to theaters around the world in the series MetLive in HD.[1]

Johannes Brahms composed a cantata entitled Rinaldo based on the story.

Rinaldo and Armida, Willem van Mieris (1709).

Armida as a ballet

Gallery

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Armida.
  1. ^ "Rossini: Armida". IMDb.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wood, James, ed. (1907). The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne. ((cite encyclopedia)): Missing or empty |title= (help)

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