gems,

The antique romances (Le Roman de Thèbes, Le Roman d’Eneas, Le Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, and Le Roman d’Alexandre by Alexandre de Paris) popularize Latin narratives for a 12th-century audience. This “romancing” is accompanied by amplificationes of gold and gems. The ekphraseis that punctuate these texts renew both the technique of portraiture and the descriptions of the city, the tent, and the tomb. This goldsmith’s work conveys encyclopedic knowledge, largely borrowed from contemporary lapidaries and bestiaries, and contributes to the translatio studii et imperii. These sumptuous ornaments implicitly offer a “goldsmith-like” Ars poetica, outlining a rhetoric of color through the lens of rhetorical colors. The anonymous poet gradually asserts his identity and claims his craft: he ultimately depicts himself as a goldsmith, a craftsman of words.