Une image bien encontenancée L’iconographie du Livre de l’Espérance d’Alain Chartier (manuscrit BnF fr. 126)

The frontispiece image of the Livre de l’Espérance due to the Talbot Master 1435 (BnF fr. 126, ca 1435) shows the most remarkable attention paid to the details of the text. This paper studies how the painted image, by using the traditional somnium’s iconographic syntax, underlines the powerful shift created by Alain Chartier in the topic. Nonetheless, the painter avoids pathetics effects : the crossed-arms “damoiselle encontenancee” features the modest allegory of a restrained pathos.