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Bindino da Travale (d. 1416), a minor artist living in Siena, decided late in life to compose a chronicle recounting major events in recent Sienese and Italian history. This cronaca, largely dictated, presents several striking features that separate it from both annals and newly emerging humanist histories. Bindino displays a wide range of knowledge: he can list more than 25 types of gemstone; he can name the nine orders of angels, in proper sequence; he even tries, with uneven results, to imitate the flowery and subtle speech of ambassadors.
This essay focuses on one such unusual aspect of his chronicle, namely, its allusions to both form and content of chansons de geste. The resemblences argue for the persistence of this earlier literary form, at least in popular literature, and suggest literate non-elite Italians could use a rich non-humanist version of the past to interpret contemporary events