For literature of the Middle Ages, the concept of genre is not only fundamental, as for any other era, but perhaps the most universal and comprehensive. The feeling of self-closure of the genre was so strong then, so determined everything in the work, that departures from the boundaries of genre parameters were not only rare, but marked to the greatest extent. As V. M. Zhirmunsky wrote, in the era that interests us, “the change of literary trends is presented as a sequence of literary genres. Within the framework of the dominant genres, individual creativity is closed; the genre is an expression not of an individually unique, but of a socially typical worldview and style.” Although it is quite obvious that genres in the conditions of the Middle Ages do not literally replace each other, but only, when they arise, they become side by side with older ones and sometimes completely crowd them out, the self-sufficiency of the genre is emphasized here with exceptional precision. Further, V. M. Zhirmunsky names the heroic epic and chivalric romance among the dominant genres of the era. Yes, they really held a leading place, although narrative literature was not at all limited to these two genres. At least in French literature, which is what we have to deal with.ContentsContentsa. D. Mikhailov. Introduction 3M. L. Andreev. Commines and Machiavelli. On the problem of semantic boundaries of the Renaissance 32Р. I. Khlodovsky. Lorenzo Medici between Giovanni Boccaccio and Niccolo Machiavelli. Transformations of one novelistic plot 52A. D. Mikhailov. Questions of the typology of the European short story of the 15th century 112I. K. Staff. Printing and popular literature in 15th-century France 133A. V. Toporova. The phenomenon of Savonarola (1452–1498) 172Jean Dufournet (Paris:). Some distinctive features of the generation of King Louis XI (Translation from French by E. V. Gvozdeva with the participation of M. V. Sokolova) 189A. B. Mozhaeva. Allegorism of Juan de Mena 222K. A. Chekalov. Antoine de La Salle: between fiction and truth 239N. B. Kardanova. “Playing the Lute and Crying for Love” (Entertaining Poetry of 15th Century Italy) 274L. V. Evdokimova. Prose and poetry in French prosimeters of the 15th century 290Index 328