Il divertimento al di là delle intenzioni : copisti e lettori della Navigatio sancti Brendani

Althought its monastic genesis and features, the text known as Navigatio sancti Brendani tells such a marvelous adventure that medieval readers seem often look at it more as an enterteinement-oriented novel than as a pious hagiography. We can detect several symptoms of such an approach, when exploring its transmission. In almost a half of the manuscripts, we find near the Navigatio other works defined by a strongly phantastic and supernatural shape, as well as by exotic locations (‘epic’ passiones, apocrypha, visiones, Vitae Patrum, voyage tales, poems on Alexander…). Critical voices, e.g. Bartholomy of Trento and an anonymous satyrical text, indirectly show how much a naive and enthusiastic audience could be influenced by the Brendan legend and its less ‘orthodox’ contents. A tast for enjoying the plaisantness of the text produces some rewritings oriented to increase its realistic and dramatic features. Therefore, the most impressive proof of an amused reading of Navigatio are some marginal sketches by scribes and readers: animals, devils and other marvels have been drown in several manuscripts, both isolated and in serial sets.