L’omotopia instabile delle città di Apollonio

The settings of the Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri, which takes us across the Mediterranean sea into several Hellenistic cities, with their typical buildings as hallmarks of urban life, connect the work to the Greek novels more closely than the plot itself. During the Middle Ages the same background becomes atypical and difficult to understand, but many authors take advantage of it, combining in lively scenes old and new features of the urban landscape, and sometimes expanding the scenery outside the city walls. While the lack of descriptions and historical details makes easy for the cities to lose their identity, we can see one of them gaining a primary role, like Antioch, and another being completely replaced, like Mytilene, which becomes Paris in a late Italian version.