Rodomont has no sooner gained the shore,
Than on the wooden bartizan he stands,
Within the city walls, a bridge that bore
(Roomy and large) king Charles’s Christian bands.
Stanza cxxi. lines 1, 2, 3, 4.
In the original,
Non si tosto a l’ asciutto è Rodomonte
Che giunto si sentì su le bertesche
Che dentro a la muraglia facean ponte,
Capace e largo, a le squadre Francesche, &c.
As Ariosto, no doubt, took his details from the sieges of his day, I should wish, if possible, to illustrate whatever appears to require explanation in the present narrative. The bertesca, or bertrescha, in question, appears to have different meanings in different places, and is usually accompanied with different interpretations in the dictionaries. Its best definition would seem to be a wooden and moveable bartizan, not confined, like our stone-bartizans, to the platform between the towers of a gateway, but placed occasionally between towers or battlements of any description or extent; and one of the explanations of the term to be found in dictionaries will show its precise meaning in this place; to wit, that it was a stage, moving upon hinges, within the wall of a fortification, which being raised to a horizontal position, served as a mean of communication between the towers, and made the bridge spoken of by Ariosto.
The perishable nature of this bertesca, though it would explain its not being to be found in any of our old castles, does not account for its not being mentioned (and it is not, as far as I am informed) by any of the French or English chroniclers. Can we explain this, by supposing the Italians to have been better engineers than their northern neighbours, and to have resorted to means of defence unknown to them? Perhaps this may be the solution of the difficulty.
