Royal MS 16 G V

This manuscript contains Des cleres et nobles femmes, an anonymous French translation of the poem De mulieribus claris (Concerning Famous Women), begun in 1361 by Giovanni Boccaccio (b. 1313, d. 1375) and revised several times before his death in 1375. The work is a moralizing compilation of biographical sketches of historical and mythological women, as well as some of Boccaccio's contemporaries. The poem is dedicated to Andrea Acciaioli, Countess of Altavilla (active 14th century).

Another volume containing Des cleres et nobles femmes is now Royal MS 20 C V, produced in Paris at least two decades earlier. The two manuscripts share the same version of the translation and their miniatures have similar designs. It has been suggested that Royal MS 16 G V is a direct copy of the Parisian volume (Reynolds (1988), pp. 159-64).

Contents:

ff. 1r-v: Table of contents;

ff. 2r-129v: Des cleres et nobles femmes, an anonymous French translation of Boccacio's De mulieribus claris.

Decoration:

1 large miniature in colours and gold divided in four compartments, with full foliate borders of ivy and acanthus leaves, and a foliate initial in colours and gold, at the beginning of the prologue (f. 3v). 102 one-column miniatures in colours and gold with partial border of vine and acanthus leaves and foliate initial in colours and gold. Initials and paraphs in gold on rose and blue grounds with penwork decoration in white.

The manuscript's decoration was completed by an artist based in Rouen, known as the Talbot Master, who illuminated two surviving manuscripts produced for John Talbot (b. c. 1387, d. 1453), 1st Earl of Shrewsbury: a collection of romances presented to Margaret of Anjou in honour of her marriage to Henry VI in 1445 (Royal MS 15 E VI) and the 'John Talbot Book of Hours' (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, 40.1950).

The subjects of the miniatures are as follows:

f. 2r: Boccaccio presenting the work to Andrea Acciaioli, Countess of Altavilla;

f. 3v: Boccaccio reading a book (top left), Boccaccio presenting the book to Andrea Acciaivoli, countess of Altavilla (top right), a messenger presenting a letter to Semiramis (bottom left) and a queen with four female musicians (bottom right);

f. 5r: Eve and the serpent;

f. 6r: Semiramis enthroned, with her son Ninus;

f. 8r: Opis enthroned;

f. 8v: Juno in the sky, protecting women;

f. 9v: Ceres enthroned;

f. 11r: Minerva, with armourers;

f. 12r: Venus, with admirers;

f. 13r: Isis, escaping in a boat to Egypt;

f. 14r: Marpesia and Lampeto, Queens of the Amazons;

f. 15r: Thisbe finding the body of Pyramus;

f. 16v: Hypermnestra being arrested by order of Danaus;

f. 18r: Niobe viewing the dead bodies of her husband Amphion and two of her children;

f. 19r: Hypsipytle helping Thoas to escape by sea to Chios;

f. 20r: Medea uttering a spell; Jason on horseback, and the slaughter either of Absyrtus or of one of Medea's children;

f. 21v: Arachne weaving on a loom;

f. 22v: Orithyia and Antiope, Queens of the Amazons;

f. 23r: Erythraea, the Sibyl, writing at a desk;

f. 23v: Medusa in a ship;

f. 24v: Iole and Hercules;

f. 26v: Deianira, Nessus and Hercules;

f. 27r: Jocasta commits suicide; Oedipus puts out his eyes; Polynices and Eteocles kill each other;

f. 27v: Almathea, Sibyl of Cumae, reading;

f. 28v: Nicostrata inventing the Latin alphabet, with her son Evander;

f. 30v: Procris and her husband Cephalus;

f. 31v: Argia discovering the dead body of her husband Polynices;

f. 33r: Manto practising pyromancy;

f. 34r: The wives of the Minyans;

f. 35v: Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons, riding to battle;

f. 36v: Neoptolemus sacrificing Polyxena at the tomb of Achilles;

f. 37r: Hecuba witnessing the slaughter of King Priam and her children;

f. 37v: Cassandra;

f. 38v: Clytemnestra and Aegisthus murder Agamemnon;

f. 39v: Helen and Paris;

f. 42v: Circe and Ulysses;

f. 44r: Camilla, Queen of the Volscians, hunting;

f. 45v: Penelope weaving, and her suitors;

f. 47v: Lavinia giving birth to Julius Silvius; Ascanius giving up the crown;

f. 48v: Death of Dido;

f. 53v: Nicaula, Queen of Sheba, visits Solomon court;

f. 54v: Pamphila, daughter of Plates, collecting the cocoons of silk-worms from trees, and spinning silk;

f. 55r: Rhea Silvia, buried alive, while her sons Romulus and Remus are suckled by a wolf;

f. 56r: Gaia Cyrilla (Tanaquil) spinning at her loom;

f. 57r: Sappho reading her poems;

f. 58r: Lucretia stabbing herself;

f. 59r: Thamyris, Queen of the Scythians, killing Cyrus in battle;

f. 60v: Leana and her torturers;

f. 62r: Athaliah, Queen of Jerusalem, ordering the slaughter of the princes of Judah; her death by stoning;

f. 64v: Cloelia crosses the river Tiber on horseback;

f. 65r: Hippo drowning herself;

f. 66r: Megullia Dotata marries and her husband receives her dowry;

f. 66v: Veturia and Volumnia meeting Coriolanus;

f. 68v: Tamaris painting a portrait of Diana;

f. 69r: Artemisia defeating the Rhodians;

f. 72r: Death of Virginia;

f. 73v: Irene, daughter of Cratinus, painting a picture;

f. 74r: Leontium reading and being seduced;

f. 74v: Death of Olympias, Queen of Macedonia;

f. 76r: Claudia, vestal virgin, defending Appius Claudius;

f. 76v: Virginia, wife of Lucius Volumnius, in the temple of Pudicitia;

f. 77v: Festival of the goddess Flora;

f. 80r: Marcia with a mirror and sculptor's tools;

f. 81r: Sulpicia swinging a censer in the temple of Venus Verticordia;

f. 82r: Death of Harmonia, daughter of Gelon of Syracuse;

f. 82v: Busa of Canosa di Puglia taking care of surviving soldiers from the defeated Carthaginian army;

f. 83v: Sophonisba taking poison;

f. 85r: Theoxena fleeing from Philip of Macedon in a ship;

f. 86v: Berenice Pontica, Queen of Cappadocia, in a war chariot;

f. 87v: The Queen of Orgiago, King of the Gallogracci, presenting him with the head of her rapist;

f. 88v: Tertia Aemilia; her husband Scipio Africanus, committing adultery;

f. 89v: Dripetrua, Queen of Laodicea, serving her father Mithridates;

f. 90r: Sempronia, sister of the Gracchi, refusing to kiss Lucius Equitius;

f. 90v: Claudia Quinta;

f. 91v: Mithridates VI and Hypsicratea his wife, on horseback;

f. 93r: Sempronia, wife of Decimus Junius Brutus;

f. 94v: The wives of the Cimbrians hanging themselves;

f. 95v: Julia, daughter of Augustus Caesar.

f. 96r: Porcia, daughter of Cato Uticensis and wife of Brutus, kills herself by swallowing burning coals;

f. 97r: Curia, hiding her husband Quintus Lucretius;

f. 98r: Hortensia pleading with the Triumvirs (Caesar Augustus, Mark Anthony and Marcus Aemillius Lepidus);

f. 98v: Sulpicia leaving her friends, to follow her husband Lentulus Cruscellio into exile;

f. 99r: Cornificia with a book;

f. 99v: Execution of Marianne, wife of Herod the Great;

f. 101r: Death of Cleopatra;

f. 104v: Antonia, widow of Drusus;

f. 105r: Agrippina, widow of Germanicus;

f. 105v: Paulina in the temple of Isis;

f. 107r: Death of Agrippina, mother of the Emperor Nero;

f. 109r: Torture of Epicharis;

f. 110r. Pompeia Paulina and Seneca attempting suicide;

f. 111r: Sabina Poppaea riding on a litter;

f. 112v: Triaria going into battle with her husband Lucius Vitellius;

f. 113v: Proba writing;

f. 114v: Faustina Augusta, wife of Marcus Aurelius;

f. 115v: Julia Soaemias, mother of the Emperor Elagabalus, among the Roman senators;

f. 117v: Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, hunting;

f. 120r: Pope Joan giving birth;

f. 121r: Irene being crowned Empress at Constantinople;

f. 122r: Gualdrada, Florentine virgin, given in marriage to Guido by the Emperor Otho;

f. 123r: Marriage of Constantia, Queen of Sicily, to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI;

f. 124r: Camiola of Siena marries Roland, natural son of Frederic, King of Sicily, to save him from captivity;

f. 127v: Joanna, Queen of Jerusalem and Sicily, receiving gifts from her subjects.