The Lost Poem by the Forgotten Poet of Charles V's 'Conquest of Tunis' Tapestries. The Periocha expeditionis Africanae Thunetensis of Francois de Bourgogne de Fallais

Abstract

<p>The famous sixteenth century tapestry series the 'Conquest of Tunis', detailing the 1535 campaign of Charles V to recapture Tunis from the Ottomans under Barbarossa, has been much studied for the artistry of its images by Vermeyen, less attention has been devoted to the Latin text at the base of each panel, often described as mere 'captions' to the events depicted of uncertain authorship. This chapter identifies both the author of the poem, and examines the engagement of the poem with wider contemporary patterns of representing Charles V. It is argued that, much more than just 'captions', these texts are a Latin hexameter poem, the Periocha expeditionis Africanae Thunetensis by the hitherto largely forgotten sixteenth century poet François de Bourgogne de Fallais. This poem engages intertextually with classical Roman epic poets, in particular Vergil and Lucan, to cast Charles as a successor to Aeneas, Caesar, Augustus and his campaign to reconquer Tunis as a continuation of Rome's wars against Carthage. In so doing, the poem engages in a wider pattern of utilising the powerful symbolic resonance of the Roman empire to portray Charles V positively as a successor to that imperial tradition.</p>