Orlando

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Orlando is the paladin nephew of Charlemagne, remembered in the Commedia as one of the two most celebrated champions of the Christians' war against the infidels. His figure is tied to the episode of the rout of Roncevaux, where in the year 778 the rearguard of Charlemagne, under his command, was treacherously attacked by the Saracens in the Pyrenees. On that occasion Orlando sounded his great horn to warn the emperor, but when Charles arrived he found only the dead. The echo of the episode reaches Dante in canto XXXI of the Inferno, where the sound of Nimrod's horn recalls to memory that terrible one of Orlando. In Paradiso XVIII Orlando is joined with Charlemagne among the names of the champions of the faith who, like the two biblical heroes, are cited as examples by Cacciaguida. Orlando is a figure known to Dante through the Chanson de Roland and the songs of the Carolingian cycle, in which his name was joined with that of Charlemagne.