Palaeography, Manuscript Illumination and Humanism in Renaissance Italy: Studies in Memory of A. C. de la Mare
Robert Black (Editor), Jill Kraye (Editor), Laura Nuvoloni (Editor)
Series: Warburg Institute Colloquia
Published in association with: Warburg Institute
Albinia de la Mare (1932–2001), OBE, FBA, Professor of Palaeography at King’s College London, was one of the last century’s outstanding palaeographers and the world’s leading authority on Italian Renaissance manuscripts. In November 2011 a conference was held at King’s College and the Warburg Institute to honour her memory, and this volume offers revised versions of most of the papers read on that occasion, as well as three additional contributions. Tilly de la Mare had exceptionally wide interests, including key individuals involved in manuscript and literary production, as represented here by studies on Vespasiano da Bisticci, Sozomeno da Pistoia, Matteo Contugi da Volterra, Lorenzo di Francesco Guidetti, Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, Bartolomeo Sanvito, Bartolomeo Varnucci, Francesco Petrarca, Pier Candido Decembrio, Leonardo Bruni and Marsilio Ficino. Important themes in the history of palaeography – the emergence of humanist script; the relationship between script and illumination; the competing methods of palaeography and philology; the social, political, academic, geographical and cultural contexts of manuscript copying and production; and the role of palaeography in the transmission of classical texts – were also in the compass of her scholarship and are treated in this collection. The volume concludes with sixteen colour plates and indices of manuscripts, incunabula and names.
“This bilingual English/Italian volume provides 22 essays which together are an advertisement for the range and possibilities of paleography.”
Times Literary Supplement
“There are significant articles on paleography and codicology by Teresa de Robertis, Irene Ceccherini, Stefano Zamponi, Gabriella Pomaro, and Giliola Barbero. Although de la Mare’s focus was on script rather than illuminations, there is a short section on illuminators as well. Jonathan J. G. Alexander’s “Scribes and Illuminators in Italian Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts: Cooperation and Overlaps” documents several unusual cases of crossover between the two specializations. All the articles are superbly edited with charts, appendixes, and, most importantly, dozens of black and white manuscript facsimiles, as well as sixteen color plates.”
Renaissance Quarterly
Contents
I. Albinia C. de la Mare
Vincenzo Fera: L’umanesimo di Albinia C. de la Mare
Concetta Bianca: Albinia C. de la Mare (biblioteche senza inventario)
II. Vespasiano da Bisticci
Luca Boschetto: Letteratura, arte e politica nella Firenze del Quattrocento. La collaborazione tra Vespasiano e Manetti per l’Oratio funebris di Giannozzo Pandolfini
Wi-Seon Kim: Vespasiano da Bisticci: un cartolaio dissenziente nella Firenze del Quattrocento
III. Palaeography
Teresa De Robertis: I primi anni della scrittura umanistica. Materiali per un aggiornamento
Irene Ceccherini: Codicologia dei manoscritti della prima età umanistica: i libri di Sozomeno da Pistoia
Stefano Zamponi: Aspetti della tradizione gotica nella littera antiqua
Gabriella Pomaro: Copisti stranieri in Italia nei sec. XIV e XV in Codex – Inventario dei Manoscritti Medievali della Toscana
Giliola Barbero: Manoscritti e scrittura in Lombardia nel secondo quarto del secolo XV
IV. Scribes
David S. Chambers: Matteo Contugi of Volterra (d. 1493): Scribe and Secret Agent
Lorenz Böninger: The Ricordanze of Lorenzo di Francesco Guidetti: Manuscript Production and Circulation
Karl Schlebusch: Giorgio Antonio Vespucci: 1434–1514
Xavier van Binnebeke: Additions to the Latin Library of Giorgio Antonio Vespucci
Laura Nuvoloni: Bartolomeo Sanvito and Albinia C. de la Mare
V. Manuscript Illumination
Jonathan J. G. Alexander: Scribes and Illuminators in Italian Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts: Cooperation and Overlaps
Giordana Mariani Canova: La dimensione accademica della miniatura del Rinascimento a Padova
Angela Dillon Bussi: Albinia C. de la Mare, Vespasiano da Bisticci e la miniatura: il caso di Bartolomeo Varnucci
VI. Humanism
Silvia Rizzo: Il copista di un codice petrarchesco delle Tusculanae: filologia vs paleografia
Stephen Oakley: The ‘Puccini’ Scribe and the Transmission of Latin Texts in Fifteenth-Century Florence
Mirella Ferrari: Umanisti italiani nel fondo Burney della British Library: autografi di Pier Candido Decembrio
James Hankins: Latin Autographs of Leonardo Bruni
Sebastiano Gentile: Nuove considerazioni sullo ‘scrittoio’ di Marsilio Ficino: tra paleografia e filologia
Paperback: 9781908590510 / 244mm x 170mm
Robert Black (Editor)
Jill Kraye (Editor)
Laura Nuvoloni (Editor)
“This bilingual English/Italian volume provides 22 essays which together are an advertisement for the range and possibilities of paleography.”
Times Literary Supplement
“There are significant articles on paleography and codicology by Teresa de Robertis, Irene Ceccherini, Stefano Zamponi, Gabriella Pomaro, and Giliola Barbero. Although de la Mare’s focus was on script rather than illuminations, there is a short section on illuminators as well. Jonathan J. G. Alexander’s “Scribes and Illuminators in Italian Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts: Cooperation and Overlaps” documents several unusual cases of crossover between the two specializations. All the articles are superbly edited with charts, appendixes, and, most importantly, dozens of black and white manuscript facsimiles, as well as sixteen color plates.”
Renaissance Quarterly
More books in this subject area
Living with Machines
Ruth Ahnert
Emma Griffin
Jon Lawrence
The Living with Machines Team
12 November 2026
Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541–1857: The Welsh Dioceses XIV
William H. Campbell
Joyce M. Horn
13 August 2026
Postcards, Translators and Esperanto Pioneers
Guilherme Fians
Bernhard Struck
Claire Taylor
13 November 2025
Atlantic Isles: Travel and Identity in the British and Irish West, 1880–1940
Gareth Roddy
30 October 2025