The Intellectual Interests Reflected in Libraries of the Fourteenth and ...

FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURY LIBRARIES 269
duced probably by Eleanor of Aragon, wife of Ercole I, and
Lucrezia Borgia. Among these was a copy of the Siete Partidas.58
About one-third of the contents, or two hundred and ninety-two
volumes, in the library of Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua in 1407
was in the vernacular, thirty-three in Italian (lingua vulgari), and
seventy-seven in French (lingua francigena).5 The library of the
Visconti, dukes of Milan, in 1426 had some ninety-five of its nine
hundred and eighty-eight books in French, some seventeen in
Italian, and seven in other vernaculars.60 For the most part these
French vernacular works included the Romances of the Arthurian
cycle, of which the quest for the Holy Grail was the most popular,
historical chronicles, chansons de geste, or feudal epics, and satirical
fabliaux.61
In France, as Sabbadini points out, the interest in classical
works of antiquity is reflected in the fourteenth and fiftee-nth centuries
by the translation of Latin texts into the vernacular. This
is revealed in the reign of John I, and of Charles V, and his brother,
John, duke of Berry. At the invitation of John I, the Benedictine
Petrus Berchorius translated in 1352 all the books of Livy that
were then known. A number of works of Aristotle were translated
by Nicholas of Oresme, and several historical tracts were translated
by Simon de Hesdin for John, duke of Berry.62 Charles V, who was
celebrated as an ardent book lover by his court historian, the noted
feminisit, anrd author. Christine de Pisan.63 had a large number of
58 Bertoni, La biblioteca Estense, 91-93. Bertoni indicates that the spread of
the Spanish tongue was rapid as a result of the accession to the papacy of the two
Borgias, Calixtus III (1455-1458), and Alexander VI (1492-1503).
59Pia Girolla, "La biblioteca di Francesco Gonzaga, secondo l'inventario del
1407," Accad. Virgiliana, Atti e memorie, XIV-XVI (1921-23), 33. Cf. Luzio-
Renier, "Il Filefo e l'umanismo alla corte dei Gonzaga," Giornale storico della lett.
ital., XVI (1890), 121, note 3; W. Braghirolli, "Inventaire des manuserits en langue
frangaise possedes par Francesco Gonzaga I, capitaine de Mantoue, mort en 1407,"
Romania, IX (1880), 497-514; Novati, "I codici Francesi de'Gonzaga secondo nuovi
documenti," Romania, XIX (1890), 151-200.
60 Dukas, "La bibliotheque des dues de Milan," Bulletin du bibliophile (Paris,
1876), 379 if.; [Girolamo d'Adda], Libreria Visconteo-Sforzesca del Castello di
Pavia (Milan, 1875), nos. 192, 196-98, 202, 227, 229-30, 232-45, 280, 298-317, 320,
401, 404-407, 411, 413, 460, 774-77, 808, 812-16, 829, 841, 848, 851-52, 854, 856,
858, etc.
61 P. Breillat, loc. cit., 262-300.
62 Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codici (1914), 34.
63 L. Delisle, Cabinet des manuscrits, I, 18 if.; 38; On Christine de Pisan, see
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