# Pinabel — Orlando Furioso character guide

> Pinabel in Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Count Pinabel, Sir Pinnabel, faithless Pinnabel

**First appearance:** 0003-canto-i

## Snapshot

A treacherous knight of the house of Maganza whose taste for betrayal finally meets a woman with a sword and no patience for it.

## Who they are

Pinabel, sprung from the faithless line of Maganza, schemes against Bradamant and thinks he has buried her for good. His treachery is not grand villainy but petty, self-serving malice, the kind the poem treats as a family trait. In the early–middle cantos he serves as the foil who lets Bradamant prove her mettle, and his fate shows how Ariosto rewards the righteous and lets the wicked dig their own graves.

## In the story

### [Canto II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/orlando_furioso_se/chapters/canto-ii)

Treacherous guide who plots to abandon Bradamant due to the feud between their houses.

### [Canto III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/orlando_furioso_se/chapters/canto-iii)

Traitor who pushed Bradamant into the cave and fled, believing her dead.

### [Canto XXII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/orlando_furioso_se/chapters/canto-xxii)

The faithless Count of Poictiers who imposed a shameful law at his castle; recognized by Bradamant as the one who threw her into Merlin's tomb; flees from her vengeance.

### [Endnotes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/orlando_furioso_se/chapters/endnotes)

Referenced in the note about Altaripa and Guido the savage.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/orlando_furioso_se/characters/pinabel
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/orlando_furioso_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/orlando_furioso_se/characters