ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2468 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2468 ************************************ From: "Sara L Friedemann" 16 Mar 2002 Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if would be an appropriate name for an upper-class Venetian woman living in the mid-16th century. You also asked what types of additional names and titles Renaissance Italians used. Here is the information we have found. was common in 15th century Florence [1] (and no doubt in many other places), but we haven't found an example in Venice. It appears not to have been a common name in Venice. We did find early 14th century examples of and in Latin records from the Venetian colony of Crete; these probably correspond to and . [4] We also found the pet form in the 14th century. [3] The masculine form is also found in 14th century Venice [3], and so based on these examples, we believe is a possible, though not very common, Venetian given name. The surname is found in Florence in the 15th century, where it was the surname of a fairly prominent family. [2,5] We were not able to find evidence for the surname in Venice, but believe it might possibly have been used there as well. If you would like to consider an appropriate Venetian surname, we recommend you browse the following article: "Fourteenth Century Venetian Personal Names" http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/venice14/ These names are all found in the 14th century. If you find any that interests you, we would be happy to research whether it was still in use in the 15th century. You also were interested in information on titles used by Italian nobles in this period. We found a website that might interest you; it discusses Italian titles through your period and after. It is quite extensive, and should hopefully answer any questions you might have. [6] "Italian Titles of Nobility" http://www.regalis.com/nobletitles.htm 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 were provided by Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, Ursula Georges, Catriona inghean ui Bhraonain, Adelaide de Beaumont, Juliana de Luna, Leonor Martin, and Juliana la Caminante. For the Academy, ~Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 16Mar02 --------------------------------------- References & Notes: [1] Arval Benicoeur, "Feminine Given Names from the Online Catasto of Florence of 1427" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/catasto [2] _Florentine Renaissance Resources, Online Tratte of Office Holders, 1282-1532_. Machine readable data file. Edited by David Herlihy, R. Burr Litchfield, Anthony Molho, and Roberto Barducci. (Providence, R.I., 2000). http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/tratte/main.html. [3] Arval Benicoeur and Talan Gwynek, "Fourteenth Century Venetian Personal Names" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1999). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/venice14/ [4] McKee, Sally, _Wills from Late Medieval Venetian Crete 1312-1420_, 3 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1998, ISBN 0884022455). [5] De Felice, Emidio, _Dizionario dei nomi italiani_ (Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milan, 1992). s.n. Ademaro [6] The SCA has a list of standard accepted alternate titles for differing languages. While these rankings reflect SCA practice and not necessarily medieval practice, we thought we should mention them here. They are available online at http://www.sca.org/heraldry/titles.html