ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1992 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1992 ************************************ From: 30 May 2000 Greetings from the Academy of St. Gabriel! You asked whether the name , in combination with an epithet meaning 'fair' or 'beautiful', or having to do with roses or redheads, would be an authentic name for an Italian woman living between 1400 and 1550. You also asked whether the arms 'Argent, axes crossed in saltire sable and on a chief azure three mullets of six points or' would be appropriate for an Italian during this period. Here's what we've found about the name and device you're interested in: is a fine choice of given name for your chosen culture and time period. The name was used widely in the northern and central Italies during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, and was in use throughout your period. (1) (2) By the beginning of the fifteenth century, most upper-class Italian families had begun to use inherited surnames. A woman's full name generally consisted of her given name, a patronymic formed by adding the preposition followed by her father's given name, and the family name. A woman named who was the daughter of would be called . There is evidence, however, that descriptive bynames were used by some Italian women in your period. One that we have found that might interest you is or , which might have been used by a redheaded woman. (3) would probably be an appropriate name for you to use, though we are not sure whether a woman from a wealthy or noble family would have used a name like this. In any case an Italian woman in your period would probably also have had a family name and would certainly use a patronymic on some occasions. If you would like help in selecting a family name which was used during your period, a helpful resource is the list of names from the 1427 census of Florence which can be found at http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/catasto/newsearch/family_names.html Please note, some of these names have been abbreviated, since the field they are entered into cuts off after ten characters. If you are interested in selecting a family name with a similar meaning to the epithets you discussed, a number of commonly used Italian surnames have meanings similar to 'beautiful' or 'red-headed'. You might want to consider , or , all of which might imply a red-headed ancestor, or , which means "beautiful". (4) The design of your arms appears to be a reasonable one for your period, although not typically Italian. We have not found an example of axes in Italian armory although they were used elsewhere in Europe. The examples of six-pointed mullets that we have seen are from the Siena region. In Florentine heraldry eight points are far more common. You may want to take this apparent regional variation into account when choosing a final design. We hope that this letter has been useful to you. Please feel free to write to us again if you have further questions, or would like clarification about any part of this letter. I was assisted in the research and writing of this report by Arval Benicoeur, Adelaide de Beaumont, Zenobia Naphtali, Antonio Miguel Santos de Borja, Walraven van Nijmegen, Julie Stampnitzky and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Raquel Buenaventura May 30, 2000 (1, 3) De Felice, Emidio, _Dizionario dei nomi italiani_ (Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milan, 1992). s.nn. Ginevra (1), Rosa (3) (2) David Herlihy 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 (4) Family Names Appearing in the Catasto of 1427 http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/catasto/newsearch/family_names.html