Angelica Lost and Found

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Like those of its paternal parent were.

The rest was from its dam inherited.

It’s called a hippogriff. Such beasts, though rare,

In the Rhiphaean mountains, far beyond

The icy waters of the north, are found.

It is on this steed that Ruggiero rides to the rescue of Angelica when she is menaced by Orca, the sea monster, as she stands naked, chained to a rock on the island of Ebuda where she has been offered up as a sacrifice.

Volatore, the hippogriff, is fixated on this episode in Ariosto’s epic poem. Possibly he resents Ariosto’s evident delight in describing Angelica’s nude plight. Passionate creature that he is, he feels that Angelica is meant to be his prize, not Ruggiero’s.

Volatore has until now resided in the sixteenth-century painting by Girolamo da Carpi which hangs in the Museum of Art in El Paso, Texas. In this story he will leave the painting and travel through 2008, sometimes as idea, sometimes in human form, sometimes even as his animal self, determined to find the eternal Angelica and win her for himself. It won’t be easy: Volatore is an imaginary animal but the Angelica of his choice is a flesh-and-blood woman who lives in San Francisco. How in the world — and who can say for certain exactly what this world is? — can this problem be resolved?

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