Piedmontese in Poitiers? An Inscription in the Baptistére Saint-Jean

Abstract: The baptistère Saint-Jean in Poitiers has an inscription in a fresco that has been interpreted as a quotation from a sermon in Piedmontese. The sermon provides an intriguing interpretation of the mural, but the manuscript containing it was written after the mural had been painted. The sermon must represent a copy of an original that appears in the mural in Poitiers and later in the Piedmontese manuscript. The original version must have traveled to Poitiers as other sacred inscriptions in Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek traveled, either carried by speakers of the language or transmitted in now-lost manuscripts.