ABSTRACT
This is a success story, as medieval traditions about ‘the noble Emperor’ make clear. In one French, Spanish, and Portuguese romance, printed in Lisbon in 1483, Vespasian, a sufferer from leprosy, is cured by the handkerchief of St Veronica, and proceeds to take Jerusalem, avenging Christ and punishing Jews and Pilate; he converts his entire Empire to Christianity.1
