The first complete edition of a fourteenth-century Franco-Italian chanson de geste, presented with facing page English translation. The late medieval poem Huon d'Auvergne ('Hugh of Alvernia') belongs linguistically and thematically to both Italian and French literary history. Structurally a chanson de geste, an Old French epic form, Huon was created in the northern Italian peninsula for an audience of its courts and princes. It is the first poem to quote Dante's Divine Comedy. However, far from merely imitating the Inferno, Huon reworks a long and varied tradition of Otherworld journeys ranging in origin from antiquity to the fourteenth century, its protagonist's voyages echoing those of St Brendan, Virgil and Dante. Sent by King Charles Martel of France to demand tribute from Lucifer, Huon, en route to Hell, travels through multiple fantastic places, fighting serpents, rescuing a lion and being transported by griffons. He meets Prester John, converts multiple eastern cities to his
