In Arles at the turn of the 13th century, Gervase of Tilbury compiled his Otia imperialia in Latin. He concluded this vast encyclopedia of secular knowledge with an original collection of mirabilia from various sources, some even drawn from his personal experience. The work, whose content was immediately captivating, enjoyed undeniable success for generations, as evidenced by the number of surviving manuscripts and the efforts made to have it translated. Two of these translations have come down to us: one probably by John of Antioch, better known for having published a Rhetoric of Marcus Tullus Cycerus in 1282, and the other, independent, by the prolific Jean de Vignay in the 1320s. They constitute a precious testimony not only to the French language, but also to the practice of a genre that was flourishing and thus revealing the translator's temperament. The edition by Cinzia Pignatelli and Dominique Gerner, which has the advantage of giving side-by-side the two versions of the third part of the Otia, allows for an instructive comparison. - [Abstract]

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