Les illustrations du “Decameron” entre manuscrit et imprimé. De la traduction de Laurent de Premierfait aux éditions d’Antoine Vérard (1485; ca. 1500)

Abstract

This paper analyses the iconographic programme of the first Decameron translations into French, written, copied or published between 1411 and ca. 1500 (12 illuminated manuscripts of Laurent de Premierfait’s Cent nouvelles and two illustrated editions printed for Antoine Vérard between 1485 and 1500). It focuses on the structural transformations put forward by the illustrators from one version to another and it also shows how the balance between the frame narrative and the novellas themselves is reinvented in each specific version. The comparison between the manuscript tradition and the two incunabula aims at shedding fresh light, in particular, on Vérard’s Decameron adaptation and shows how the cornice becomes a striking feature in the visual identity of the French Cent nouvelles.