Berna, Burgerbibliothek, 296: le meilleur témoin de la Bataille Loquifer ? Strategie contaminatorie e collatorie: un affondo

BERNA, BURGERBIBLIOTHEK, 296: LE MEILLEUR TEMOIN DE LA BATAILLE LOQUIFER? STRATEGIE CONTAMINATORIE E COLLATORIE: UN AFFONDO. This paper aims to investigate and to display the strategies of collation and contamination occurred in the manuscript Berna, Burgerbibliothek, 296 (signed E), that for a long time was considered one of the best and most important witnesses of the epic cycle of Guillaume d’Orange – in particular for the songs Bataille Loquifer and Moniage Rainouart, that belong to the petit cycle d’Aliscans. This manuscript, compared to the rest of the witnesses of these chansons de geste, has strong individuals features. It is characterised by a tough textual interventionism that results, in terms of “microvarianza”, in many lectiones singulares and, by the side of “macrovarianza”, in entire lasses sometimes rewritten on a different rhyme, or even added. Due to these evidences, it is no longer possible to attribute to E this central role, but it must be considered a sort of edition variorum whose purpose is that to create an “ideal model” of text that ensues from this particular use of contamination.