Lineages
Every great book stands on older ones. Homer gave Virgil his wanderings and his war; Virgil walked Dante through Hell. Start from a classic and follow its line, one work at a time, across the map.
What it draws on
Turold, AD 1100
Ariosto takes Charlemagne's paladin from the French epic, Orlando being Roland, and lets him lose his mind for love. The war against the Saracens is still there, but the heroic chanson turns into a sprawling, playful romance.
Source: Wikidata
Wikidata records Orlando Furioso as based on The Song of Roland. Read it there
Its heirs
Torquato Tasso, AD 1580
Tasso wrote in Ariosto's shadow and borrows his materials, enchanted gardens, warrior maidens, knights led astray by love, while binding them into a single, serious epic of the First Crusade.
Source: Wikipedia, Jerusalem Delivered
“The work belongs to the Italian Renaissance tradition of the romantic epic poem, and Tasso frequently borrows plot elements and character types directly from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso.” Read it there
Miguel de Cervantes, AD 1605
Ariosto's poem is one of the romances that turn the knight's head, and Cervantes keeps returning to it: Don Quixote wants Mambrino's helmet, weighs going mad for love as Orlando did, and the interpolated tale of the 'curious impertinent' retells a story from its forty-third canto.
Source: Wikipedia, Don Quixote
“The interpolated story in chapter 33 of Part four of the First Part is a retelling of a tale from Canto 43 of Orlando, regarding a man who tests the fidelity of his wife.” Read it there