[en] Regarding the number of its 16th-century translations, Cesare Fiaschi's treatise Trattato dell'imbrigliare, maneggiare, et ferrare cavalli seems to be the sign of a real editorial success in history. Indeed many translations particularly in French were published immediately after the original Italian version published in Bologna in 1556. Fiaschi was a nobleman from Ferrara and quite well known as the first early-modern squire who founded a famous riding school in Ferrara, a choice maybe influenced by the established fame of this particular northern court as the centre of contemporary chivalric literature with classical authors like Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso. Among early attendants of Fiaschi's school, via his Neapolitan pupil Giovan Battista Pignatelli, were the future French creators of the discipline, through their treatises for horsemen: Antoine de Pluvinel and Salomon de La Broue. It is therefore quite surprising, that in spite of his contemporary success, the name of Cesare Fiaschi has today been virtually forgotten. Even amongst scholars of early modern culture, we find only rare contributions to the study of the Italian pioneer of the theory of modern horse riding. In my study, I intend to give an answer to this question by reformulating some new proposals dealing with the special conditions and effects of the equestrian iconography illustrating treatises during the Italian and French Renaissance. To this end, I connect my conclusions with the central topic of the necessity of adapting commonplaces and established universalist norms to a nowadays oriented view on men and society. Renaissance theories on the equestrian art do certainly constantly meet the challenge of representing in the most efficient and eloquent way possible the elegant but yet vanishing mobility ("dance" as it might be called) of horses and horsemen all together. Of course, the illustrations in the treatises are full of naive beauty but are quite sincere in the way they seem to struggle with an epistemological and artistic problem: for instance, how to render in a motion picture style the gallop of a horse within the stillness of the page? On the other hand, it is the discovery of this interesting problem that opens the perspective on the adaptation of the body of the text towards new necessities as well. With the translation of Fiaschi's treatise in French, we follow the transfer of the Italian text to a new French political and societal reality. In fact, via the transformation process of the translation of an original, – idealistic – thought, we have the confirmation of a new – realistic – paradigm of knowledge. From a cultural icon to the societal prospection for today: indeed, the history of the European treatises on horse training, ridership and horse breeding follows the path from original equine imagery to innovative questionings of contemporary reality.

[fr] Le Traicté de la manière de bien emboucher, manier et ferrer les chevaux de Cesare Fiaschi (1523-1558), gentilhomme de Ferrare et célèbre écuyer de la première modernité en Europe, connut plusieurs traductions françaises tout de suite après la publication de l'édition originale italienne en 1556 (Trattato dell'imbrigliare, maneggiare, et ferrare cavalli). À première vue, il s'agit d'un succès éditorial évident pour celui qui fonda dès 1534 à la prestigieuse cour de la famille d'Este de Ferrare une école d'équitation qui allait former par le biais de son élève napolitain Giambattista Pignatelli les fondateurs français de la discipline, à savoir Antoine de Pluvinel et Salomon de La Broue. Malgré ce succès historique, la renommée de Cesare Fiaschi s'est aujourd'hui quasiment éteinte. Après un bref aperçu de l'histoire des traités équestres en Europe, cette contribution analyse les caractéristiques de l'iconographie équestre qui illustre bon nombre de ces traités, d'abord en Italie pendant la Renaissance, ensuite ailleurs en Europe. C'est dans cet élan de créativité que se révèle l'intérêt des enjeux prospectifs qui souvent prennent toute leur valeur face à un sentiment d'impasse et de frustration irrésolue. En effet, lors du passage de ces nouveaux savoirs de l'Italie en France s'est produit un changement important à l'intérieur du paradigme. Vers le milieu du XVIe siècle, les questions philosophiques s'orientent de plus en plus vers un concret réellement vécu. Comme l'art équestre occupe le cœur même de toutes les passions humaines – puisque le cheval est admiré en tant qu'expression métaphysique de l'essence de la beauté qu'il faut cultiver en tant qu'honnête homme ou citoyen –, celui-ci est un des premiers vecteurs de la phase historique de concrétisation des théories relatives au comportement de l'homme dans la société.