Performative engravings

The oldest semiological type of engraving we come across is the performative type. The engraving represents the hero's performance: his battle against another knight, or a less expected adversary (monster or fairy), or the reward bestowed upon him (blessing, acceptance, consecration). Sometimes, finally, the performance is not singular, but collective: it cements the community in the accomplishment of a ritual.

The space of a performative print obeys a logic that is not geometrical, but symbolic. There is no depth of field (or very little), no spectators, no theatricality. In the simplest configurations, this symbolic space is ordered either as a confrontation, a agon (in which case it is split in two by a vertical axis of symmetry, sometimes outright with two distinct backgrounds) or as a reunion, a communion, for example around the banquet: in this case, it's the respective disposition of the characters that makes sense.

Whatever the case, whether the space is divided according to an agonistic bipartition or is homogeneous, both the agon and the banquet implement a differential system of a syntactic type: the layout of the space does not imitate a real, or even plausible, space, but arranges elements of meaning. The subdivisions of space correspond to logical articulations (but, meanwhile, whereas...).    Engravings are rarely purely performative, as this semiological organization of the image already constitutes an archaism at the time Ariosto wrote the Roland furieux. This makes it difficult to analyze these mixed images, where several semiological models coexist and interfere.

Bradamante in Merlin's cave: from performance to stage (Canto III)

Let's compare the various illustrations to which Canto III of Roland furieux gave rise. We can start with the woodcut from the Valgrisi edition, exceptional for its size and the luxury of the details depicted (View the engraving). This engraving offers a clockwise progression, from Pinabel's betrayal on the right, through the evocation of the spirits at the bottom, to the encounter with Brunel at the top left (View notice). This is already no longer a purely performative engraving, selecting the knightly feat(s), or the rituals celebrating the values and community of chivalry in a symbolic space, as is the case, for example, in the Rampazetto edition, which depicts the evocation of spirits in the manner of a medieval banquet, or a meeting of the knights of the round table, or in Ferrari's Giolito edition, which cuts Bradamante's horse in half without regard to its second half : what matters is to oppose on the right the chivalric lineage that will give birth to the Dukes of Este, and on the left the anti-chivalric lineage of the Dukes of Mainz, of which Pinabel is the ancestor and emblem.
   In the Franceschi edition, Girolamo Porro's copperplate engraving, clearly inspired by that of the Valgrisi edition, accentuates the spatial integration of the narrative: in the space of the engraving, G. Porro leads the viewer's gaze from the bottom to the top, accentuating the narrative in the same way as in the Valgrisi edition. /// perspective effects. Above all, he transforms the underground chapel into a theatrical stage and, through the cutting effect produced by the rock jetty in the center, suggests the presence of a "fourth wall" between the spectator, depicted on the engraving as Bradamante in prayer, and the stage proper: we shouldn't be seeing what we're seeing, which lies underground and is covered by the rocks ( Voir la notice).

Eighteenth-century editions, Zatta edition from Venice, édition Brunet from Paris, whose engravings are included in édition Plassan, a single episode is selected from the song, and ordered to form a scenic device, i.e. a theatrical staging of the characters' gaze. This staging of the gaze articulates the two fundamental spaces constitutive of the classical scenic device, the restricted space of the stage proper, and the vague space where the distant, the real, the effects of perspective, the extra-scenic elements of representation are deployed.

See all notices corresponding to Canto III.