The Reception of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Work in Italy

Abstract

The reception of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s work in medieval Italy is an integral part of two fascinating veins of inquiry: the early appearance of the Matter of Britain in Italy and its evolution in various social, political, and cultural contexts around the Peninsula.1 At the beginning of the 12th century, before the De gestis Britonum was written, an unedited Arthurian legend was carved on Modena Cathedral’s Portale della Pescheria, a stop for pilgrims headed to Rome along the Via Francigena.2 Remaining in the vicinity of Modena, the only continental witness of the First Variant Version of the DGB (Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, 982) can be connected to Nonantola Abbey.3 Moving to the kingdom of Sicily, in 1165 the archbishop of Otranto commissioned an enormous mosaic for the cathedral, and Arthur is depicted in one of the various scenes, astride a goat, fighting a large cat.4 To describe Geoffrey of Monmouth’s reception in