Rinaldo and Armida

In this painting, Ettore De Maria Bergler shows his full and joyful connection to the popular and traditional roots of his native land. He puts on canvas one of the stories of the puppet theatre, an old form of popular and educated entertainment which staged episodes taken from Medieval chivalric literature, Italian Renaissance poems, lives of saints and tales of bandits. From behind the scenes of a small theatre, a young woman moves the arms of the paladin Rinaldo with some sticks and acts at the same time, while other puppets, which are visible only in the lower part of their bodies, seem to be spectators.