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Isabella and Beatrice were all in favour of the knight of Montalbano as the type of Italian chivalry, while Sanseverino, who had kinsmen at the court of France and took delight in French costumes and French literature, was as much at home in France as he was at Milan, and defended the matchless glory of his hero, Orlando.
As they bent over their embroidery-frames at their lady mother's side, in the painted camerini of the Castello, or under the acacias and lemon-trees of the Schifanoia villa, they listened to the wonderful fairy tales which Matteo Boiardo recited, and heard him tell how Rinaldo of Montalbano was pelted with roses and lilies and made captive by Cupid's dames.
And as they talked of Messer Matteo Boiardo's famous new poem and of the old French romances, a lively discussion over the respective merits of the paladins, Roland and Rinaldo di Montalbano arose between the two princesses on the one hand, and Messer Galeazzo on the other.
Rolando!" on the one side, and a "Rinaldo!" on the other, until one afternoon Messer Galeazzo was acknowledged victor, and even Isabella took up his cry of Roland, but soon returned to her old allegiance, and declared boldly that she would allow no rival to the wronged knight of Montalbano.
Kitty Cuthbertson, most silly though readable productions, the nature of which may be guessed from their titles: 'Santo Sebastiano, or the Young Protector, 'The Forest of Montalbano, 'The Romance of the Pyrenees, and 'Adelaide, or the Countercharm. I remember how, when 'Santo Sebastiano' was sold by auction in India, he and Miss Eden bid against each other till he secured it at a fabulous price; and I possess it still."
All the paladins who had recently lost relations were in mourning and wore long pieces of crape trailing from their helmets. Pasquale took me round, told me who they all were and explained their genealogies. I was in a hades peopled with the ghosts of Handel's operas. I saw Orlando himself and his cousins "Les quatre fils Aymon," namely Rinaldo da Montalbano, Guicciardo, Alardo, and Ricciardetto.
Then he returns to the old controversy over Orlando, and replies to a gay challenge which Isabella has sent him in a letter to Signor Lodovico, only wishing she were here to defend Rinaldo in person, or rather to be made to own the error of her ways, and to confess that the knight of Montalbano is not to be compared to Roland!
One day, says Matteo Boiardo, in the fifteenth canto of the second part of his "Orlando Innamorato," as Rinaldo of Montalbano, the contemner of love, was riding in the Ardennes, he came to a clearing in the forest, where, close to the fountain of Merlin, a wonderful sight met his eyes.
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