Chapter Alle prese con l’ignoto. Un gioco di memory tra il Devisement dou monde e la sua traduzione latina vulgata

Abstract

From the Crusades onward, passing through the Mongol invasion, the late-medieval culture increasingly came across animals, people, and nature unknown to the classical and Christian tradition. Among the works describing the otherness, the Devisement dou monde is the most famous and rich in insight. In its peculiar textual tradition, consisting of translations, it is possible to recognise an internal dialectic between the original text and its reworkings: after a first interpretation of the exotic, made by Marco Polo and Rustichello, a second one was suggested by individual translators. The article examines two specimina from the Latin version composed by Francesco Pipino, the identification of the roc with the griffin and that of the parrot with the epimachus.