France late 12th century C.E. Anonymous Renaut de Montauban (Les Quatre Fils Aymon) Probably composed during the reign of Philip Augustus, known for toughness in his dealings with barons, the chanson de geste known as Renaut de Montauban encapsulates the...
Italy ca. 1340 Giovanni Boccaccio, Teseida (The Theseid) The Teseida—or Teseida: Delle nozze d’Emilia (The Theseid: Of the nuptials of Emilia), the full title we derive at the closure of the text—is an epic poem written by Giovanni Boccaccio in the...
Italy Published: 1483 CE; 1495 CE Matteo Maria Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato Written for a fifteenth-century Italian court society hooked on Arthurian romance but also attuned to current world events, Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato (Orlando in Love) charts a complex...
Spain First edition, 1490 Joanot Martorell Tirant lo Blanch A Valencian knight named Joanot Martorell replaced his sword with a pen on January 2, 1460, in order to narrate the adventures of a fictional knight. This undertaking resulted in...
Spain First edition, 1496; oldest extant edition, 1508. Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo Amadís de Gaula Amadis de Gaula (Amadis of Gaul) was the most famous and bravest knight in the entire Hispanic literary tradition, that is, until a crazy gentleman in a...
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