France / Greece: Alexander the Great exploring the ocean depths in a submerged barrel. Illuminated illustration from the Roman d'Alexandre or Li Romans d'Alixandre ('Romance of Alexander'), 12th century

The 'Romance of Alexander' is a massive 16,000-verse twelfth-century Old French Alexander romance detailing various episodes in the life of Alexander the Great.

It is considered by many scholars as the most important of the Medieval Alexander romances. Many of the manuscripts of the work are illustrated.The poem is generally divided into four branches.

The final form of the poem is largely credited to Alexandre de Bernay who probably placed the branches in the order we find them, reworked the first branch into alexandrines (lines of poetic meter each comprising 12 syllables), incorporated the text of Pierre de Saint-Cloud, and added verses to join each branch.

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Pictures From History