Amadis of Europe. The end of Amadís de Gaula's cycles: the French continuations of Esferamundi of Greece

Abstract

In the European chivalric literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the cycle of Amadís de Gaula occupies an outstanding position. The histories of Amadis and many of his descendants long occupied the interest of writers and readers and led to the publication of numerous different books, first in Spanish and then in Italian, in German and in French. In this study, after briefly describing the incidents of the Amadisian cycle in Spain, Italy, Germany and France, we pay special attention to the three books of the series originally written in French, which were published in Paris between 1626 and 1629 under the joint title of Le romant des romans by Gilbert Saulnier Duverdier. As we will see, although since 1615 the German Amadises had been published in French, Saulnier Duverdier preferred to ignore them and continue the action of the voluminous Italian series known as Esferamundi, whose six books were written by Mambrino Roseo and had also been translated into French. The three works of Saulnier Duverdier, which were published in English in 1640, represent the final closure of the Amadis series.