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Sloane MS 2377
- Record Id:
- 040-002114742
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002112337
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000653.0x000038
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100181359229.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Sloane MS 2377
- Title:
- Nicolosa Sanuti, De Ornatu Mulierum
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains a presentation copy of De Ornatu Mulierum (On Women's Clothing), a Latin prose treatise by Nicolosa Sanuti (d. 1505). Sanuti was a wealthy Bolognese noblewoman and the wife of Nicolo Sanuti (b. 1407. d. 1482), Count of the Porretta. Her treatise first appeared in 1453 and was addressed to Cardinal Bessarion (b. 1403, d. 1472), who had recently introduced a restrictive sumptuary law in Bologna, much of which was devoted to specifying the garments permitted to each class of women in the city. Sanuti's treatise was a direct response to the Cardinal's law, questioning its ideological basis, defending the status and rights of women, and calling for its repeal. The work represents one of only a few such orations written by a woman to survive from the medieval period.
The manuscript was probably owned by Sante I Bentivoglio (b. 1426, d. 1462), an Italian nobleman who ruled as the de facto prince of Bologna from 1445 to 1462, and whose arms appear on the opening page of the volume. Bentivoglio was also Sanuti's lover and exchanged a number of poems and letters with her that still survive.
Other surviving manuscripts of Sanuti's treatise include Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Fondo Ottob. lat., MS 1196; Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. MS 6850; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, ms lat. 11313; Edinburgh, University Library, 119; Harley MS 2508; Harley MS 3830; Vicenza, Biblioteca Civica Bertoliana, Fondo Principale, MS 7.1.83.
For a discussion and translation of the text, see Killerby, 'Nicolosa Sanuti's defence of women and their clothes' (1999), 255-82.
Contents:
ff. 1r-40v: Nicolosa Sanuta, De Ornatu Mulierum, written in Latin, with the rubric, 'Nicolosa Sanuta Bononiensis apud Regum d. D. B. Episcopum Tusculanum Card. Bononie legatum: ut mulieribus ornamenta restituantur causam agit'; the text beginning, 'Matronarum fortunam accusare...' (f. 1r) and ending, 'Finis Foeliciter / Val. S. / SNSB' (f. 40v).
Decoration:
1 large white vine initial 'M'(atronarum) and a full foliate border in colours and gold, with an inscribed golden scroll and the heraldic arms of Sante I Bentivoglio in the lower margin (f. 1r).
The opening rubric, written in chrysography (f. 1r). Marginal notes in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Medieval and Renaissance Women
Sloane Collection - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002112337
040-002114742 - Is part of:
- Sloane MS 1-4100 : Sloane Manuscripts
Sloane MS 2377 : Nicolosa Sanuti, De Ornatu Mulierum - Hierarchy:
- 032-002112337[2365]/040-002114742
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Sloane MS 1-4100
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100181359229.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1455
- End Date:
- 1465
- Date Range:
- c 1460
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 155 x 110 mm (written space: 80 x 50 mm).
Foliation: ff. 40 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 1 parchment flyleaf at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment stub before f. 1 + 1 parchment flyleaf and 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).
Quire numbers.
Script: Humanistic.
Binding: British Museum in-house. Purple morocco leather, with the Sloane arms gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers; marbled endpapers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Bologna, Italy.
Provenance:
Sante I Bentivoglio (b. 1426, d. 1462), Italian nobleman and de facto ruler of Bologna: his coat of arms (f. 1r).
Sir Hans Sloane (b. 1660, d. 1753), baronet, physician and collector: inscribed with former shelfmarks, including, 'MS 2262', 'MS.C. 25' and 'XXI A' (f. [iv] recto).
Purchased as part of the Sloane collection from Sloane's executors and incorporated into the newly founded British Museum in 1753.
- Information About Copies:
- Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additional Manuscripts: Sloane 2268-2496 (London: British Museum unpublished manuscript of unedited descriptions, no date), no. 2377
Paul Oskar Kristeller, Iter Italicum: Accedunt Alia Itinera: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and other Libraries, 7 vols (London: Warburg Institute; Leiden: Brill, 1963-1997), IV (1989), p. 61.
Giuseppe Lombardi, Galiane in rivolta: Una polemica umanistica sugli ornamenti femminili nella Viterbo del Quattrocento, 2 vols. (Rome, 1998), I, pp. cxvi–cxxxviii.
Catherine Kovesi Killerby, ''Heralds of a well-instructed mind': Nicolosa Sanuti's defence of women and their clothes’, Renaissance Studies, 13 (1999), 255-82.
Jane Bridgeman, ‘”Pagare le pompe”: Why Quattrocento Sumptuary Laws Did Not Work’, in Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society, ed. by Letizia Panizza (Oxford: European Humanities Research Centre, 2000), pp. 209-21.
Catherine Kovesi Killerby, Sumptuary Law in Italy 1200-1500 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 125-32.
Matthias Thumser, 'Neuer Ort, neue Chance: Albrecht von Eyb kommt nach Eichstätt', in Reform und früher Humanismus in Eichstätt: Bischof Johann von Eych (1445-1464), ed. by Jürgen Dendorfer in collaboration with Jessika Nowak (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2015), pp. 133-45 (pp. 138-39).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)