Campobasso, Italia
This study focuses on a problem which has been widely debated among specialists in epic literature, Hispanists and Romance Philologists, that is the supposed existence of a Chanson de Geste written in Castilian («Cantar de Rodlane») around 1060–1070. According to Ramón Menéndez Pidal, this text could be the direct source for the famous and anonymous Nota Emilianense. Nevertheless, a thorough analysis of the arguments proposed by Menéndez Pidal leads to the conclusion that the Cantar de Rodlane probably never existed and, on the other hand, that some of the principles of Pidal’s neotraditionalist theory should be critically revisited.