IN chapter 45 of Don Quijote, the knight envisions a conflict at the inn as the discord that took place in King Agramante's camp (De Armas 147ff). This Saracen King, who is said to have come from Africa and laid siege to Paris at the time of Charlemagne's rule, is a purely fictional figure. Invented by Matteo Boiardo as the antagonist for his Orlando inamorato (1495), the figure is further developed by Ludovico Ariosto (Murrin 57–9). Ariosto's work begins somewhat before the abrupt ending of Boiardo's epic, with Orlando's return from the Orient with Angelica, and Charlemagne about to fight the Saracens. But Angelica is taken from Orlando by Charlemagne himself, who does not want a quarrel to escalate between Orlando and Reinaldo. As the poem continues to sing of “knights and ladies, love and arms, of courtly chivalry and courageous deeds,” the many interspersed narratives and the many locations in which they occur (including the moon) make it into a wondrous tapestry which served as base for numerous future works.

The twenty-seventh canto of the Orlando furioso (1532) focuses on Agramante. Here, the Saracen leader, together with Sacripante, Rodamonte and King Sobrino, is about to triumph over Charlemagne in the siege of Paris. Ariosto describes the scene with great pathos and drama as he tells of the shrieks and wails of widows and little orphans scared at the coming onslaught. But in this providential yet playful poem, the Christian God intervenes and orders the Archangel Michael to search for both Silence and Discord. The first will allow Reinaldo's army to arrive silently to help the besieged, while the second will go to Agramante's camp so as to create a major disruption and thus stop the siege. The archangel, thinking he has fulfilled his order, turns to other matters, only to discover that Discord is distracted as she causes monks to throw breviaries at each other in anger at a monastery. Michael plucks Discord from her perch, and while administering a number of blows orders her to enter the Saracen camp once again, and there cause confusion and internal dissent.