Aimon de Varennes, a French poet from Lyon, wrote the Florimont in 1188 at Châtillon. Conceived as a prequel to the Roman d’Alexander, the Florimont recounts the life of Florimont, who marries the king’s dauther and founds Philipopolis, thereby becoming grandfather to Alexander the Great.
The presence of two manuscripts from the fourteenth-century Veneto demonstrates that the text’s pseudo-classical setting fit the tastes of an Italian readership, who likewise copied and consumed similar romances during this period, such as the Roman d’Eneas and the Roman de Troie.
Manuscripts
Monza, Biblioteca Capitolare, b 21/137
Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, fr. XXII
Edition
Florimont: Ein altfranzösischer Abenteuerroman, ed. Alfons Hilka. Göttingen: Niemeyer, 1932.
Secondary Literature
A. Medin, “Una relazione italiana del Florimont di Aimon de Varennes,” Studi letterari e linguistici dedicati a Pio Rajna nel quarantesimo anno del suo insegnamento, Milano, Hoepli, 1911, p. 695-706.
F. Novati, “Nouvelles recherches sur le Roman de Florimont d’après un ms. italien,” Revue des langues romanes (1891), p. 481-502.
See Arlima.