T<scp>ristan</scp> V<scp>igliano</scp>. <i>Parler aux musulmans: Quatre intellectuels face à l’Islam à l’ordee de la Renaissance</i>.

The traumatic middle decade of the fifteenth century, which saw the final collapse of the Byzantine Empire, also produced a constellation of writings by cleric-scholars on the future of Islamo-Christian relations. In Parler aux musulmans, the French literary scholar Tristan Vigliano examines the ways in which works by these politically engaged writers open a window onto “the dialogue of Christianity with Islam on the cusp of the Renaissance” (305). The question at the heart of the book, which is written for a nonspecialist audience, is whether real interreligious discussion was possible, or even desirable, in this transitional era. Vigliano explicitly states that his objective is only to examine the texts within their historical context; he is uninterested in overtly engaging either other scholars or the debates in the field, leaving interested experts to trace these in his detailed notes. The book is organized into four chapters, each dedicated to a different author, bookended by a useful introduction and conclusion. The first chapter examines the Débat du Chrétien et du Sarrasin, written in 1451 by Jean Germain, the bishop of Chalon. The text is written in the vernacular, which may indicate that it was intended for a lay, perhaps even courtly, Christian audience. The titular debate, such as it is, plays out over five books, and is, unsurprisingly, not a fair match, as Germain devotes less than a quarter of the text to an actual discussion of Islam. Vigliano reads the Débat as a metaphor for crusade, inspired by the culture of chivalry; thus victory in verbal sparring equates with triumph on an eventual battlefield. This is, in other words, debate as combat, with any real religious discourse a convenient fiction. Germain sees dialogue as impossible and undesirable; rather, his objective is to reaffirm Christians in their faith, and to mobilize them to action.

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