Women and Adventures in the Chivalric Novels of Mambrino Roseo: A Comparison with the Spanish Palmerin Cycle

Abstract

This article offers a comparison between the female figures in Mambrino Roseo’s Palmerini and those of the Spanish cycle. The analysis reveals an ideological tension between the aims of docere and delectare in the Italian works, where women seem to conform to more modern and less medieval paradigms than their Spanish counterparts. This modernizing tendency, characteristic of Roseo’s literary production, can be attributed both to the growing presence of female readers at the time and to the author’s pedagogical intent.