Orlando (character)
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Orlando is the Italian equivalent of the French Roland. The name Orlando/Roland goes back to a Germanic origin, and is said to mean "One who is famous throughout the land".
[edit] Italian Renaissance romances
He appeared as a central character in a sequence of verse romances from the fifteenth century onwards, including Morgante by Luigi Pulci, Orlando Innamorato by Matteo Maria Boiardo, and Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto. The Orlandino of Pietro Aretino then waxed satirical about the 'cult of personality' of Orlando the hero.
The Orlando narrative inspired several composers, amongst which Claudio Monteverdi, Antonio Vivaldi and George Frideric Handel, who composed an Italian opera with Orlando in the title role, see: Orlando.
[edit] Later works
Orlando: A Biography was written in 1928 by Virginia Woolf, and could at first sight be seen as adding yet some more episodes to the adventures of the (by now imaginary) Orlando character, but Woolf's story takes a completely different turn, and is set in a time different from that of the Renaissance Orlandos.
Orlando, or Roland, is also depicted in Judith Tarr's novel Kingdom of the Grail. This, however, is historical fiction that involves magic, Merlin and demons.
The name has also been sometimes used for other fictional characters of similar quality, such as Cidolofas 'Thundergod' Orlandu from Final Fantasy Tactics, whose power and skill in in-game terms were (and are) considered by many to be so overpowered, that 'An Orlandu' has seen occasional use as a term for an unbalancingly powerful character in an RPG.
The character, or at least Virginia Woolf's version of him/her, is now a major character in Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel series, making his/her début in the series with "The New Traveller's Almanac" and is expected to be a major character of Volume 3, or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, set to be released on October 25, 2006. Orlando also was depicted in paintings in the background of panels and on the covers of the first two volumes.
Ensembles like the Orlando Consort took their name from the Orlando character.
