­L’épopée franco-italienne, une trahison des clercs ?

Loyal to the tradition of the French chansons de geste, the Franco-Italian epic of the fourteenth century also reflects the pre-humanist conceptions of contemporary Italy. Divided between divergent value systems, it exalts and subverts at the same time the old conception of warrior prowess and Manichean history by connecting them with a more lucid vision of the world’s diversity and human complexity, but not without revealing a certain nostalgia for un-nuanced heroism.