Richard de Fournival’s Bestiaire d’amours was composed during the second quarter of the thirteenth century. In several manuscripts it is identified by its alternate title, Arriere ban (Military reserves), in accordance with Richard’s use of an extended military metaphor: just as a king attempting to take a city will, as a last resort, call upon his reserves, so the narrator-protagonist of the Bestiaire d’amours, having failed to conquer his lady through singing, makes his last stand by sending her his bestiary. The Bestiaire d’amours enjoyed an immediate and widespread popularity. It survives today in seventeen manuscripts of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, including three of Italian origin; it inspired a variety of continuations and reworkings, as well as extensive programs of illumination. - [Author]

Language: English