Valuable illuminated manuscript from the 14th and 15th centuries returns to Saluzzo after 600 years

After more than 600 years, the precious illuminated codex of the work of Marquis Thomas III, Le livre du Chevalier errant, returns to Saluzzo from Paris, thanks to the Artea Foundation. The illuminated manuscript, kept in the collections of the National Library of France in Paris will in fact be on display from October 5 to 10 at the Monastery of the Stella on the occasion of the exhibition Treasures of the Marquisate of Saluzzo. Art, History and Culture between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and will also be the subject of the international conference entitled Le Chevalier Errant: Love, Fortune and Knowledge. The Pathways of Culture in the European Middle Ages, to be held on Friday, Oct. 8, at 3:30 p.m. in the conference room of the former monastery. To attend the meeting, reservations are required at www.monasterodellastella.it. The exhibition, for the occasion, will be open extraordinarily from Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.; Sundays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. For info visit www.fondazioneartea.org.

Between 1394 and the early fifteenth century, Thomas III, eldest son of Marquis Frederick I of Saluzzo, devised the narrative of a journey between reality and fiction, in the tradition of Dante, as a framework for popularizing the best-known legends of his time: Le livre du Chevalier errant. This constitutes a manifesto of the political and cultural ties that bound the little Marquisate of Saluzzo to the France of Charles V and Charles VI and is considered a masterpiece of the best fourteenth-century Parisian miniaturist production.

“We are happy and very excited about this absolutely exceptional loan that reconfirms the historical ties, which have never been broken, between France and Saluzzo,” says Marco Galateri, president of the Artea Foundation. Le Chevalier Errant depicts an ideal chivalric world that although in its twilight was still alive in Saluzzo, almost as if it were the Camelot of a fantastic kingdom that the frescoes of the Manta Castle still remind us of today.“ ”This is a unique and unmissable opportunity for the history of the ancient marquisate, the result of intense and long diplomatic work with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France," adds Davide De Luca, director of Artea. “For the first and perhaps only time, after more than 600 years, the public will be able to admire live the precious manuscript, between whose lines are gathered the keys to the historical identity of this territory.”

"The manuscript of Le Chevalier errant returning to Saluzzo from the National Library of France in Paris is a source of great pride and boasting," comments Saluzzo Mayor Mauro Calderoni. “It is a book that made its mark on the history of Europe 600 years ago, and although it is not well known to the general pbl public, it is one of the testimonies to the importance of our marquisate on the Old Continent in the period between the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Pages that tell of travels and encounters of a marquis open to the world, to exchanges, to knowledge and culture, just as we increasingly want our Saluzzo of today and of the future.”

The international conference will feature as speakers some of the leading experts on the work such as Hélène Bellon-Meguelle (University of Geneva), Laura Ramello (University of Turin), Antonella Amatuzzi (University of Turin) and Marco Piccat (University of Trieste).

Valuable illuminated manuscript from the 14th and 15th centuries returns to Saluzzo after 600 years

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