ABSTRACT
The title of this study indicates not only what it aims to include, but also what it excludes. The historical data do not allow us to establish a comparison between what may have been the relations between the gnostics of the West and Ismaili gnostics during the Middle Ages. Even today we are still very far from having access to the body of texts that would have to be analyzed in order to know Ismaili gnosis in the details of its structure and development. Yet one can imagine that in the many little gnostic circles of the Latin West-which have been especially studied by P. Alphandery, and which were more or less related to the Cathars-there must have existed certain conditions that would have permitted a dialogue. Whether or not that occurred, no trace of it has remained.
