[2][3] Bradamante, a female Christian knight in the service of Charlemagne, is the sister of Rinaldo and the daughter of Amon, duke of Dordognes.

[4] She falls in love with a Saracen warrior named Ruggiero but refuses to marry unless he converts from Islam.

An expert in combat, she wields a magical lance that unhorses anyone it touches, and rescues Ruggiero from being imprisoned by the wizard Atlantes.

However, Bradamante cannot catch up to Charlemagne's army and returns to Rodomont and Ruggiero, feeling guilty for leaving someone else to fight in her place.

However, her parents reject the suitor even after Ruggiero converts, preferring Leo, the son of the Greek emperor Constantine.

Bradamante convinces Charlemagne to decree that she will only marry a man who can withstand her in battle, greatly angering her parents, who reluctantly agree.

[17] In 1582, French dramatist Robert Garnier wrote a tragicomedy named Bradamante that further develops the love story between the heroine and Roger (Ruggiero).

For example, in Italo Calvino's surrealistic, highly ironic 1959 novel Il Cavaliere inesistente (The Nonexistent Knight).