Romanzo di viaggio e tentazione enciclopedica: possibili direttrici evolutive della forma romanzo nel secolo XIV

In one of the manuscripts of the Roman d’Alexandre en prose, ms. Stockolm, Kungliga biblioteket Vu 20, accomplished in the 14th century, the character of Alexander explores one of the encyclopedic potentialities already inscribed in his birth certificate, and provides a subjective description of “scientific” marvels that the copyist/editor draws from disparate sources, from Brunetto Latini’s Livre du Tresor to Pseudo-Alexander’s treatise, Virtutes septem herbarum. The dilation of the novelistic space illustrates one of the possible directions of evolution of the novel, postulating a union between the journey, as an instrument of knowledge, and didactic-encyclopedic discourse, as a stylistic frontier, capable of transforming the structure of the enunciator, direct witness and guarantor of the relationship. Jean de Mandeville’s Livre des merveilles and the reconfiguration of the narrating voices within Andrea da Barberino’s Guerrin Meschino, suggesting a line that anticipates the experiments of the modern age, are inscribed in this direction.