ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3139 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3139 ************************************ 23 Aug 2006 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked for our help constructing a name and arms for a man living in Trento in northern Italy between 1425 and 1495. You said you were interested in using <Domenego> or <Antonius> for your given name, and wanted to reflect in your byname the fact that you are a silversmith and that you're from Trento. For armory, you wanted to know what types of charges were common in this place and period, and also whether bends bevelled were used. Here is what we have found. We believe that there were both German-speaking and Italian-speaking people in Trento during the 15th century. Therefore, an Italian language name is a fine choice, though in some circumstances you may have used a German version of your name. The Italian name <Domenego> is a fine choice for your given name; the name is also spelled <Domenico> in other northern Italian dialects. [1,2,3] We found a man named <Dominik Dominiks> in Breslau in 1350 [4], and one man recorded as <Dominicus> in a Latin document from 1525. [5] This example is from the Czech border region in southern Germany, not too far from Austria. An Italian man from Trento named <Domenego> could easily have been known as <Dominik> in German throughout your period. <Antonius> is a Latinized spelling. [1] The standard Italian form of the name is <Antonio>. [2,3] In German, we find the name spelled <Antoni> in Nuernberg in 1497. [6] We did not find any Italian bynames meaning 'silversmith'. The modern Italian word for 'silversmith' is <argentiero>, and there is a modern surname <Argentieri> which is clearly related. [9] In Bolzano, the capital of the modern Italian region Trentino Alto Adige, which includes Trento, there is a street in the old city called the <Via Argentieri>, site of several renaissance palazzi. [10] It's certainly possible that the family name <Argentieri> was in use during your period, but we cannot say for sure, and cannot recommend this as the best re-creation without a clear example. In German, the byname <Silber> 'silver' was often used for silversmiths. [6,7] Another option is <Silberman> 'silverman', which we find recorded in Goerlitz in 1412. [8] The Italian byname meaning 'of Trento' is <da Trento>; we found an example of the corresponding German byname <Trentter> in Nuernberg in 1497. [6] However, it's unlikely that you would be known as <da Trento> or <Trentter> if you were still living in Trento. Both of these would be most more likely if you had previously lived in Trento but were now living someplace else. If your persona is living in Trento, then you might have been identified from the village or district of the city where you live. You might find some information about the names of these districts by reading books about Renaissance Trento. The earliest example of a bend bevilled that we found is in the English arms of Lorks, in the late 15th century. This charge wasn't called a "bend bevilled" in our period. Rather, it was blazoned as a "bend double daunce". This term appears to be a corruption of double-downset, with the second word confused with dauncet (i.e. dancetty). [11] As we have not found any examples of bends bevilled in Italian armory, we recommend that you do not use one in your arms. Canting armory (armory which is a pun on the bearer's surname) was relatively common in Italy. [12] In Italian heraldry, a white circle is called a <bisante di argento> 'a bezant (coin) of silver'. [13] Someone with a surname based on the word <argento> may have used a white circle (called a 'plate' in English heraldry). The most common tinctures were gules and argent, and the composition of Italian arms was generally quite simple: The field was often a single tincture, or divided simply between per fess (horiztonally) or per pale (vertically). [12] We can therefore recommend a design such as "Per fess gules and argent, in chief three plates" as typical Italian arms which might have been used by a silversmith. Other types of charges that were common in Italian armory are human body parts (including heads, hands, arms, legs, ribs, testicles, and beards), insects (including bees, butterflies, crickets, grasshoppers, flies, fleas, scorpions, and spiders), and mounts (especially trimounts and mounts of other numbers of hills). [12] We hope that this letter has been useful to you and that you won't hesitate to write us again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Juliana de Luna, Adelaide de Beaumont, Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, Rian mag Uidir, Ari Ansson, and Walraven van Nijmegen. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 23 August 2006 -- References: [1] Talan Gwynek, "15th Century Italian Men's Names" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1998). http://www.s-gabriel.org/docs/italian15m.html [2] Arval Benicoeur and Talan Gwynek, "Fourteenth Century Venetian Personal Names" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1999). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/venice14/ [3] Uckelman, Sara L., "Fifteenth Century Venetian Masculine Names" (WWW: Self-published, 2004) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/italian/venice.html [4] Bahlow, Hans, _Dictionary of German Names_, tr. Edda Gentry (German-American Cultural Society, 1994 ISBN: 0924119357). s.n. Dominck, Dominik(us) [5] Schwarz, Ernst. _Sudetendeutsche Familiennamen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts_ (Muenchen: Robert Lerche, 1973). s.n. Flenner [6] Uckelman, Sara L., "German Names from Nuernberg, 1497" (WWW: privately published, 2005) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/german/nurnberg1497.html [7] Bahlow, op. cit., s.n. Silber [8] ibid., s.n. Silbermann [9] "Distribution of Argentieri Families in the US in 1920" (WWW: Ancestry.com, 1998-2000). http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/fact.aspx?fid=7&ln=Argentieri&fn= [10] Words in Pictures, "Places to See in Trentino Alto Adige" (WWW: Initaly.com, 1996-2003). http://www.initaly.com/regions/taa/sites.htm [11] Cover Letter for the August 1992 Letter of Acceptances and Returns http://www.sca.org/heraldry/loar/1992/08/cl.html [12] Zenobia Naphtali, "Regional Style" in Proceedings of the Known World Heraldic Symposium, 1996, Montgomery, Alabama (SCA, Inc., 1996), pp. 9-10. [13] "Heraldic Translator", translating 'plate' from English. http://www.heraldica.org/cgi-bin/translat.pl