These two facsimiles editions from the Sherman Art Library Special Collection, of original Fifteenth Century manuscripts, are important to researchers specialized in art, history, literature and culture.The original Tournament Book of Rene  d'Anjou,  now kept in the Russian National Library in Saint Petersburg, is known throughout the world for its remarkable paintings and text. Produced in the last half of the 15th century, the manuscript contains the only version known of a poetic description of the Pas de Saumur, a joust festival that Rene d'Anjou had organized for his knights at Saumur in the year 1446.  Rene d'Anjou was a pivotal figure in European history, and an ambitious sovereign as well as an educated patron of the arts.  The tournaments he arranged were famous throughout Europe.  The masterfully executed illustrations are based on the lost original drawings of Barthelemy d'Eyck, an excellent painter who was active for a long period at Rene's court, and the manuscript also offers a wealth of valuable material for studies in medieval heraldry, as the illustrations show a great number of coat of arms and crests.The facsimile edition of the Historia de Alejandro Magno is a copy of one the oldest and most luxurious of the many manuscripts that illustrate the story of Alexander the Great. Filled with fanciful and masterful miniatures, this work held pride of place in the library of Isabel the First of Castile (1451-1504), and is now in the Bibliotheque Royale de Belgique. This story of Alexander the Great, written in Old French prose, takes as its model the narrative text of the Prelis, a battle history written in the 10th century by Archbishop Leo of Naples. In addition to narrating historic events, its content evolved into a novel of adventure with descriptions of exotic voyages and legends that reflected the spirit of medieval society.