On the Textual and Iconographical Traces of the Sagittaire in the Medieval Histories of Troy

This contribution focuses on the textual and iconographic representations of the sagittaire that appear in the Roman de Troie and a selection of its descendants. It attempts to outline the portrayal of this hybrid creature in Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s romance and its prose renderings on the one hand, and in Guido delle Colonne’s Historia destructionis Troiae and its French adaptations on the other, and then compares the textual data to illustrations found in manuscripts of these works.