At once a travel memoir and a geography book, the Voyages by John
Mandeville, probably written around 1355-1357, were a great success
in the Middle Ages. There are three versions of the French text;
manuscript S 99 is related to the “continental” version. As in
other manuscripts based on this version, the Voyages (ff. 1r-122v,
with an explicit on f. 123v and an addendum on ff. 124r-125r) are
followed by the Preservacion de Epidimie (ff. 122v-123v). The
actual identity of the two authors is unresolved and may even have
been confounded. In copy S 99 from the library of Walter Supersaxo
(ca. 1402-1482), Bishop of Sion, and of his son Georges (ca.
1450-1529), the upper margins are covered with ornaments of
ascending bars, some of which turn into into zoomorphic or
anthropomorphic motifs. The Supersaxo library owns another version
of the Voyages, namely S 94, in the German translation by Michel
Velser. Like two other manuscripts from this same library, S 97bis
(composite manuscript with the romance of Pontus and Sidonia) and S
100 (statutes of Savoy), S 99 was copied by Claude Grobanet, who
was mentioned in a 1474 document in Martigny, where he served
Antoine Grossi Du Châtelard, Lord of Isérables († 1495). In the
beginning of the 16th century, the family of Antoine Du Châtelard
apparently came into financial difficulties; their property - and
probably the three manuscripts as well - passed into the hands of
Georges Supersaxo. The incomplete parchment document, which makes
up the rear flyleaf, mentions, among others, Martigny, 147[3] and a
seigneur d'Ys[érables (?)].
Place
Preferred form
Martigny (Valais, Switzerland) (?)
Original form
Martigny (?)
Rights
e-codices - Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland
