Introduction à la Borboniade de Louis des Masures, épopée d’un genre nouveau

The Protestant poet Ludovicus Masurius (c. 1510-1574) left a long Latin epos about the French Wars of Religion, which were still raging at the time of composition. This Borbonias remained unedited and, like the events that the poem intended to describe, unachieved. Hence it received little attention from critics and scholars. This paper aims to trace the history of this unusual text, and to place it into the context of Masurius’ poetic project.