Un personaggio per molti mondi: intersezioni letterarie e illustrazione del Quijote tra Spagna, Francia e Italia

The transpositions of the Cervantes’ novel into theater, poetry and – above all – the visual arts reveals the multifaceted identity of don Quixote, as well as the trend for it to absorb new elements in different contexts and to transform into new characters. The Don Quixote staged by Girolamo Gigli in 1698, for example, recovers his wits looking in a mirror, thus showing a clear influence from Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered and its 17th century illustrations, which is recognizable also in the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha by Dale Wassermann (1967). On the other hand, several 19th-century engravers didn’t hesitate to highlight some elements derived from Ariosto, as the episode when Quixote writes his thoughts on trees and stones and tries to imitate Roland’s madness, while the work of Tony Johannot and Bartolomeo Pinelli may suggest some influence of the Don Quixote illustrations on those of Manzoni’s Promessi Sposi.