Pecia

There is still quite an unknown and unexploited manuscript of the popular medieval French allegorical poem The Romance of the Rose in Stockholm which is curated in the National Library of Sweden under the number Vu 39. This article has as a goal to give the first information and hypothesis we have about it : the origins of this manuscript which is a version of the XV^th Century, a description of its illuminations and some details, also a discussion about a probable centre of illuminations in Paris which made it. It claims to be the first step to place this manuscript in the long tradition of this literary work.

Medieval theater is a thorny issue. The genre was defined by modern philology, mostly from generic criteria inherited from the 17^th century and all the texts that did not match them were excluded from the first repertoires. Nowadays, the new critical approaches to theatricality in the Middle Ages invite us to (re)read the texts that were rejected from the theatrical domain with a brand new eye freed from the reading grids commonly associated with the genre in order to focus on the dramatic marks inscribed in the texts and their medium.

Our article is interested in two BnF manuscripts ‒ fr. 840 and fr. 24432 ‒ as media of theatricality both by the clues provided by their arrangement and structure, and by the signs of dramaticity inscribed in the scribe’s copy.

This article focuses on a long anonymous chronicle from the end of the XVth century. Its story is divided into 19 books and remains to this day unpublished and very little studied. I suggest naming it Chronique dite de Derval, du Chastel et de Brézé. Probably written in Brittany or Normandy, this chronicle was transmitted to us through five manuscripts, which were owned by members of three families from these regions. After studying the ownership signs borne by the manuscripts and reflexing on the possible sponsorship provided by the members of these families, analyzing the numerous interventions of the author leads me to question the structuring of the work in three volumes that was until now ascertained. Instead, a structuration in two volumes can be recognized. The study of the content of the books allows me to perceive the balance between the different historical « subjects » introduced by the author in each book, thus developing his new remembrance of antiquity stories. The article ends with an examination of the formal layout and the images of the chronicle in the manuscripts, in order to see how they accentuate the structuration of the text and how they reveal the intertwining of the different historical subjects.

This paper explores the notion of duplicates within the area of illuminated manuscripts. It focuses on the two existing copies of the Histoire de Gérard de Nevers of the Great Library of Burgundy : Bruxelles, KBR, ms. 9631 and Paris, BnF, ms. Fr. 24378. Both manuscripts contain a large number of miniatures. The Brussel manuscript was illuminated by the anonymous Wavrin Master who produced fifty-four ink drawings for Philippe the Good, whereas Loyset Liédet was given the task, after Philip’s death in 1467, of filling up the fifty-five blank spaces left in the unfinished Paris manuscript. Highlighting similarities and differences allows us to show the Master of Wavrin’s influence on Loyset Liédet’s work as well as the essential variations between the two copies. Through a particular focus on a renewed interpretation of the Master of Wavrin’s miniatures, this paper enriches our knowledge of reading practices in terms of the readers’ involvement in constructing meaning. Putting into perspective the manuscripts’ contexts of production and reception with a study of the text and the images they contain, it sheds light on the very different functions that can be attributed to the two manuscripts and contributes to the understanding of the duplication phenomenon within the Burgundian Library.

This article explores a notable characteristic of 13th-century French hagiographic collections, namely the inclusion of the Life of the Antichrist as a verifiable element, placed on an equal footing with the lives of saints. These collections, from Jacques de Voragine's Golden Legend to the flos sanctorum around Europe, experienced significant success during this period. This study aims to analyze this particularity in establishing hagiographic compilations and their manuscript environment. By delving into the cultural and religious milieu of the time, we seek to elucidate the motives behind the inclusion of the Antichrist's biography, despite its apparent paradox within the genre of hagiography. Drawing upon an interdisciplinary approach, including literary analysis and manuscript studies, this research aims to understand this French peculiarity comprehensively. Additionally, examining the manuscripts and their circulation will contextualize the production and dissemination of these hagiographic collections. Through this study, we aim to shed light on the religious and eschatological concerns that influenced the composition of these texts, expanding our knowledge of medieval French hagiography and its manuscript culture.

In the margins of fifteenth-century manuscripts, vegetal ornamentation underwent remarkable development both in quantity and quality. Given their polysemic valences, the wide variety of plants represented in illuminated pages suggests that each motif may have been deliberately selected and arranged following an iconographic programme. Moreover, the emblematic function of plants leads to suppose that they could be selected according to the context in which a manuscript was commissioned and produced. However, during the same period the connection between miniatures and marginal ornaments was weakened through the growing influence of easel paintings and of the printed book. This article examines the prayer books that Anne of Brittany commissioned during her marriage to Charles VIII and Louis XII, simultaneously as queen of France and duchess of Brittany, and attempts to assess in what measure the semantic function of vegetal ornament responded to her situation.

In the margins of fifteenth-century manuscripts, vegetal ornamentation underwent remarkable development both in quantity and quality. Given their polysemic valences, the wide variety of plants represented in illuminated pages suggests that each motif may have been deliberately selected and arranged following an iconographic programme. Moreover, the emblematic function of plants leads to suppose that they could be selected according to the context in which a manuscript was commissioned and produced. However, during the same period the connection between miniatures and marginal ornaments was weakened through the growing influence of easel paintings and of the printed book. This article examines the prayer books that Anne of Brittany commissioned during her marriage to Charles VIII and Louis XII, simultaneously as queen of France and duchess of Brittany, and attempts to assess in what measure the semantic function of vegetal ornament responded to her situation.

Brittany, beyond the cliché too often conveyed of a territory isolated from the world, on the contrary, opened up very early to diverse outside influences, introducing leading figures to all of Europe. These new notes on Breton bibliology¹ aim simply to make known certain names often forgotten by Bretons and to reveal the cultural richness of a more or less hidden facet of Brittany. The book, whether manuscript or printed, remains a vast field of research that can shed light on the history of these men, many of whom were pioneers in their fields, such as Jean Brito, Du Pré or Garamont, for example.