Great epic theories of the Renaissance, mainly inspired by Aristotelian poetics, do not deal with the most widely spread narrative practice of the sixteenth century. The first theoretician of the novel (“romanzo”), Giraldi Cinzio, whose “pre-aristotelian” conception might seem a little backward, establishes a break between ancient and modern narrative. The two traditions are based on different notions of the text: on the one hand, as an object of contemplation with its own internal logic; on the other hand, as an instrument of edification dedicated to the pleasure of and usefulness to as wide and “diverse” a readership as possible. The Giraldian model is more often observed in France, contrary to what the Pléiade accustomed its readers to believe.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Bouchard, M., (2025), "Utilité et diversité du «romanzo»: Giraldi Cinzio et le contexte français", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Bouchard, Mawy. "Utilité et diversité du «romanzo»: Giraldi Cinzio et le contexte français." Renaissance and Reformation 39 (2): 2020. 65-75. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v39i2.8869. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.