The Library of Alfonso of Aragon and Ippolita Maria Sforza, Dukes of Calabria

Lucio Oriani

doi:10.6093/978-88-6887-235-9

The Library of Alfonso of Aragon and Ippolita Maria Sforza, Dukes of Calabria

Authors

Lucio Oriani

https://orcid.org/0009-0002-0148-9883

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6093/978-88-6887-235-9

Keywords:

Aragonese Naples, Aragonese Library, History of Illumination, History of Libraries, Artistic Patronage and Collecting

Synopsis

Publisher: FedOA - Federico II University Press

Series: Regna. Texts and Studies on Institutions, Culture and Memory in Medieval Southern Italy

Pages: 807

Language: Italian

NBN: http://nbn.depositolegale.it/urn:nbn:it:unina-30228

Abstract: This book reconstructs for the first time the library that Alfonso of Aragon and Ippolita Maria Sforza, Dukes of Calabria, assembled in Castel Capuano in Naples in the second half of the 15th century. Consisting of two independent collections, united by Alfonso after the death of Ippolita Maria, this collection was characterised as a princely library. It was, in fact, mainly composed of luxury manuscripts, made and illuminated in various cities, and was strongly permeated with the humanistic values and cultural and political ambitions of its owners. At the end of its existence, marked by the fall of the Aragonese dynasty and the dispersion of its possessions, this library came to number more than one hundred and fifty and was therefore one of the major private collections that existed on the soil of the Italian Peninsula during the Renaissance.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Lucio Oriani

Lucio Oriani is an historian of medieval art, who completed his PhD at the University of Naples ‘Federico II’. He also specialised in Archival Science at the Vatican School of Palaeography and in History and Philology of Manuscripts and Ancient Books at the School of Advanced Studies ‘Alberto Varvaro’. His primary research interest is the study of the artistic production in Aragonese Naples.