ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1230 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1230 ************************************ From: "S Friedemann" 2 Sep 1998 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if would be an authentic feminine for Italy between 1400 and 1550. You also wanted help creating an authentic surname, as well as ideas for Italian or Florentine armory. We found in 1427 in Florence. It is an excellent choice for your period. [1] The most common name formation for Italy, as far as we can tell, is di . You could also use the form di di . For example, if your father's name was , and his family name was , you would be . [1,2,3] You can find a list of masculine given names from Florence in your period at http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/ferrante/catasto A list of family names from Florence can be found at http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/catasto/family_names.html We can suggest a few sources where you can look for ideas on Italian armory. Reference [4] has many color pictures that will give you a good idea of what Sienese armory looks like. Other places you can look are collections of renaissance art, particularly portraits, which often contain pictures of the peoples' arms. If you can find a good pictoral guidebook to Florence, many of the major buildings have heraldic banners and devices in them, most notably the church of Santa Maria Novella, the Bargello, and the Palazzo Vecchio. Once you get some ideas for your arms, if you write again, we'll be happy to offer some suggestions. We hope that this letter has been useful to you, and that you will not hesitate to write again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Arval Benicoeur, Zenobia Naphtali, Walraven van Nijmegen, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, --Aryanhwy merch Catmael Caermyrdin September 2, 1998 --------------------------------------- References: [1] Arval Benicoeur, "Feminine Given Names from the Online Catasto of Florence of 1427" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998) . http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/arval/catasto [2] Herlihy, David and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, "Census and Property Survey of Florentine Domains in the Province of Tuscany, 1427-1480", Machine readable data file. Online Catasto of 1427 Version 1.1. Online Florentine Renaissance Resources: Brown University, Providence, R.I., 1996 http://swansong.stg.brown.edu/projects/catasto/overview.html Especially the list of family names: http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/catasto/family_names.html [3] Ferrante laVolpe, _Men's names from Florence, 1427_ (WWW: Self-published,1996). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/ferrante/catasto [4] Le Biccherne : tavole dipinte delle magistrature senesi (secoli XIII-XVIII) a cura di L. Borgia ... [et al.]. Roma : Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, 1984