French of Italy

The French of Italy

Between the early twelfth and the late fifteenth centuries, a great number of French texts were written by Italian-speaking authors or in geographic locales where early forms of Italian were the main mode of oral communication. French texts that were first written in other French-speaking areas were also copied and actively circulated in Italy during this time. This website, in conjuction with Fordham's French of England and French of Outremer sites, aims to expand awareness of these two kinds of French texts—both those composed and those copied in Italy—and the communities in which they were produced, to encourage new scholarly approaches to the literary and historical evidence.

Texts within French of Italy repertoire were produced within the context of specific literary communities, each with its own geographic sphere of influence. These include:

French language texts were created and circulated in Italy in both prose and verse form. Works were also written in Occitan, a language from the area that is now Southern France, and these texts enjoyed an important circulation in Italy as well. These texts were some of the many literary models available to Italian writers of the time, and their presence contributed to the evolution of the culture of writing in Italy, and both reflected and shaped the political realities of the time. The following pages address the role of these texts in the Italian literary and political culture of the twelfth to fifteenth centuries:

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The French of Italy
Center for Medieval Studies FMH 405
Fordham University
Bronx, NY 10458

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This website is one aspect of the French of Italy Project, sposored by the Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University.