The Arthurian Presence in Early Italian Lyric

The article’s survey focusing on the active assimilation in Italy of the chivalric literature written in Old French reveals specific tendencies in the reception an re-adaptation of Arthurian quotations. The allusions in 13th- and 14th-century Italian poetry to deeds and heroes of the Old French romances demonstrates a convergence in the creation of typologies of the Arthurian “loans” absorbed in the form of the exemplum vel figura (‘example or symbol’), a paradigmatic comparison which links the legendary past with the contemporary world in order to illustrate a point, supported by the moralising nature of hagiographic and didactic literature. Along with biblical and classical figures, the Arthurians examples thus become symbols of absolute autoreferentiality and collective cultural and moral values.