Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 326

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 326

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/326

Some of the Academy's early reports contain errors that we haven't yet corrected. Please use it with caution.

Greetings,

Here's the information we found on your name "Chiara Vinicii da Montepulciano" as a 16th-century Italian name.

We found references for "Chiara" and "Montepulciano" to corroborate your findings. Both of these should be fine.

We didn't find documentation for "Vinicii." If it does mean "vintner," it would be an acceptable name. However, it looks more like a Latin word than an Italian one, and we doubt that it really is the Italian word for "vintner." We did find the word "vinaio," which means "wine merchant." We did find a number of surnames which were used to describe people who worked in the wine trade. Two of them, "Vigne," and "Vignole," are described as being used particularly in Tuscany. (1)

Regarding your arms: many of the elements you listed are either rare or unknown in heraldry from your period. SCA heralds have looked for a compass rose in medieval heraldry, but have never found one. Thus, we can say with some confidence that the compass rose is not found in medieval heraldry. The scorpion is found in medieval heraldry, but it's almost always used by families whose name sounds like "Scorpion" or its equivalent in their language. Descrescents are almost unknown in period heraldry as well--almost all crescents are found with the horns pointing up.

If you tell us more about your reasons for choosing the elements of your arms, we can make suggestions for arms that would be both pleasing to you and consistent with 16th-century Italian heraldic style.

Arval D'Espas Nord, Talan Gwynek, Christian de Holacombe, Evan da Collaureo, Pedro de Alcazar, Elsbeth Anne Roth, and Zenobia Naphtali contributed to this letter.

We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you.

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel

(1) De Felice, E. "Diccionario de nomi italiani."