Ninitte Florence

Florence Ninitte gained a BA and MA in Romance Studies at the Université catholique de Louvain where she also achieved a PhD in Medieval Languages in December 2016.

Her doctoral dissertation, ‘La tradition arabo-musulmane dans le Speculum historiale et dans sa traduction française par Jean de Vignay. Enjeux d’un transfert culturel’, considers the reception and the integration of Arabic texts about Islam in the Speculum historiale (SH) and in its French translation by Jean de Vignay. The main purpose of this work was to to explore the renewal of the description of Islam and its prophet through medieval encyclopaedism and the consequences of this renewal on the ambiguous relationship that existed between the medieval West and Islam during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

For the past two years Florence has held the position of scientific collaborator in the Institut des Civilisations, Arts et Lettres at the Université catholique de Louvain. Her research has focused on the transmission of Arabic texts (scientific and theological) into the medieval West and particularly the figure of Arnoul de Quincampoix, astrologer, physician and translator at the French court (early 14th century).

Within the framework of the ERC EuQu project, her postdoctoral research, ‘A Second-hand Qur’?n: The Role of the Apology of al-Kind? in the Transmission of Fragments of the Qur’?n in Medieval French Literature’, will consider the indirect reception of the Qur’?n in the medieval French literature – and more specifically in Jean de Vignay’s Miroir historial and Jean Germain’s Débat du Crestien et du Sarrasin –, through the Apology of al-Kind?.