A Christianized telling of the life of Gautama Buddha, Barlaam et Josaphat was first translated into Latin from Greek in 1048, and it quickly achieved popularity across Western Europe, receiving translations in many vernacular languages. The legend relates the story of Josaphat, a sheltered Indian prince, who, journeying outside his city's walls for the first time, encounters human suffering and recognizes the transience of worldly things. He seeks out Barlaam, a Christian ascetic and sage, who teaches Josaphat about the ascetic ideal through a series of parables. Josaphat converts to Christianity and eventually joins Barlaam as a monk in the wilderness. Throughout the Middle Ages, Eastern and Western Christianity honored Barlaam and Josaphat as saints, and their legend proved popular enough to be copied by Vincent of Beauvais in his thirteenth-century Speculum Historiale and by Jacobus de Voragine in his Legenda Aurea. The manuscript below, copied for the Visconti family in Milan, includes a version of Barlaam et Josaphat in French prose.