The Comoedia sine nomine (sometimes cited as Columpnarium) is a seven-act play in Latin by an unknown author which survives in a single manuscript, Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, Lat. 8163.1 It is a most unusual classicizing adaptation of a plot which was very popular in the later Middle Ages, a combination of two widely used narrative motifs, the Flight from the Incestuous Father and the Falsely Accused Queen.2 Emile Roy in his 1902 edition assumed that the manuscript dated from the fifteenth century and was written in Italy, but in the view of Francois Avril of the Bibliotheque nationale, it was produced in the mid-fourteenth century at Avignon under Italian influence.3 I shall return later in this essay to the question of dating and provenance to argue that the text - or at least this particular manuscript of it - can be linked to Petrarch's circle in Avignon. It could of course have been composed considerably earlier than the surviving exemplar, but I believe that there are strong grounds for positing an Avignon provenance, and for speculating that although the plot is a well-known one, this particular version may be intended to allude to the papal schism.Plot and styleFirst I will consider the many ways in which the Comoedia is an unusual version of a popular, if disturbing, medieval narrative. The writer - or his source - has gone to a lot of trouble to rework the plot elaborately in classical terms, with a mish-mash of classical names.(I) The dying queen of the Carilli makes her husband King Emolphus swear only to marry a woman who looks exactly like her. He sends the court painters to travel the world and record possible candidates. (II) The people urge Emolphus to remarry; Princess Hermionides' nurse rashly remarks that her charge is the image of her dead mother. The king falls passionately in love with his daughter and decides to marry her. (Ill) Hermionides is horrified and wants to die. The nurse plots to save her: she persuades the king to delay the wedding until the gods have been placated, and escapes with the princess to Phocis. (IV) There they are taken in by Sophia, an old friend of the nurse and expert needlewoman. Hermionides is seen by the local king, Orestes, who falls madly in love with her. He sends Aphrodissa, a bawd, to negotiate for him, and they are secretly married.(V) Orestes' mother, Queen Olicomesta, is furious, as her son had foreseen. Orestes leaves for a tournament at Athens to pursue glory at Hermionides' urging, even though she is pregnant. (VI) When she bears a fine son, the messenger Epiphanius stays with Olicomesta en route to Athens, and while he is drunk the clever maid Pharia substitutes a letter announcing that the baby is an Ethiopian monster. This news makes Orestes sad, but he orders mother and child to be well looked after until his return. Again Epiphanius stops che'.i Olicomesta, and the letter is changed to order the killing of mother and baby. The faithful seneschal Coelius exposes the baby in a watertight cradle, and sends Hermionides into exile.(VII) The baby in its richly equipped cradle is found by Achironeus, a poor fisherman. He wants to adopt the child, but first consults the oracle of Apollo on Parnassus, after discussing the matter with his friend Amyclas. Their conversation is overheard by Orestes and his counsellor Regulus, who are on their way back from Athens, suspicious of recent events. Coelius too is suspicious and discovers the forged letter trick, which he reveals to Orestes and Regulus. Meanwhile Hermionides, wandering on Parnassus, meets a shepherd who urges her to consult the oracle. All the main characters then make for the oracle; Hermionides meets Achironeus the fisherman, hears his story, recognizes the baby as hers, and manages to recover him. The nurse, Orestes, and Coelius all overhear their conversation; Hermionides and Orestes are reunited. News arrives that Olicomesta and her maid are dead. The nurse announces that Emolphus is dead and that Hermionides has inherited the kingdom. …