Boccaccio's Des cleres et nobles femmes
Subtitle: systems of signification in an illuminated manuscript
By: Brigitte Buettner.
Series: Monograph on the fine arts ;; v. 53; Monographs on the fine arts ;; 53.
Publisher: Published by College Art Association in association with University of Washington Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Seattle
Language: eng
Number of pages: 139
Subjects: Boccaccio, Giovanni, 1313-1375. -- Illustrations; Bibliothèque nationale de France; Women in art; Goddesses in art; Symbolism in art; Illumination of books and manuscripts, Gothic -- France; Illumination of books and manuscripts, French
Description: The first surviving illuminated manuscript of the French translation of Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris, known as the Cleres femmes (now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris), is the subject of this book. The manuscript was commissioned by a Parisian merchant, Jacques Raponde, as a New Year's gift for the duke of Burgundy, Philip the Bold.

This innovative aspect of the commission, where a merchant rather than a prince acted as the patron of the manuscript, provides the subject for the first part of Buettner's study. In addition to sketching the Valois rulers' practice of collecting illuminated manuscripts and to tracing the reasons for the successful reception of Boccaccio's work in this courtly milieu, the author delineates the role of merchants in Parisian artistic production around 1400.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-134) and index.