GRIFO is a literary and artistic itinerary among works of art inspired to one of the greatest poems of Italian literature: Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (1516-32).

Grifo means griffin in Italian: a mythological animal half a lion and half an eagle. Quite like Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, a hybrid poem combining epic and romance, lyric and tragedy, parody and satire, dynastic celebrations and genealogical fiction, experimentations on novelle and theatrical elements. The composite nature of the Orlando furioso extends beyond genre: it is at the same time fantastical and deeply rooted in its contemporary historical context. It pleased from the very beginning the most cultivated and demanding readers as well as the illiterate public, who would listen to it being recited in the streets and in the public piazze.

So beloved and well known were the 46 cantos of Ariosto’s poem, that from the 16th century on, artists took inspiration from it for paintings, sculptures, frescos, gardens, drawings, woodcuts, engravings, maiolica plates, shields, chests, and other precious objects, many of which are today preserved in public and private collections, archival records, and on building façades, halls, and courts. And, with time and patience, here.