Lo spazio del foglio : sulla mise en page dei romanzi cavallereschi di origine italiana (XIII–XIV secolo)

Abstract

In a workshop active in Genoa at the end of the thirteenth century, a new mise en page emerged that allowed adorning the French chivalric romances with vast figurative cycles. This page layout - illustrations without frame or background arranged at the bottom or middle of the page - originated in the manuscripts realized in late antiquity and decorated in roll style. During the Middle Ages, especially in Byzantium, this format was used to decorate historical chronicles, which thus carried an updated iconographic repertoire. Influenced by cultural exchanges with Byzantium, this illustrative solution appeared in Norman and Swabian Sicily to decorate Greek and Latin classics. In these, for the first time, the ancient heroes were represented with the attributes of medieval knights. Genoa, where contact with Constantinople and South Italy was continuous, quickly acknowledged this "proto-chivalric" illustrative current and adapted it to the decoration of the French chivalric romances.