De Mulieribus Claris

De Mulieribus Claris or De Claris Mulieribus (Latin for "Concerning Famous Women") is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, composed in Latin prose in 1361–1362. It is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in post-ancient Western literature.^[2] At the same time as he was writing On Famous Women, Boccaccio also compiled a collection of biographies of famous men, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium (On the Fates of Famous Men).

De Mulieribus Claris

A miniature depicting a queen with four musicians from a c. 1440 illuminated version of the De Claris Mulieribus held by the British Museum[1]
Author	Giovanni Boccaccio
Original title	De Mulieribus Claris
Language	Latin
Genre	biography
Publication date	1361–62
Publication place	Florence
Media type	Manuscript
Dewey Decimal	920.72
LC Class	PQ4274.D5 E5

The famous women

The Banquet of Cleopatra and Antony, a woodcut from a 1479 version of Giovanni Boccaccio's De Mulieribus Claris published in Ulm, Germany, which also depicts the suicides of Cleopatra and Antony^[3]

• 1. Eve, the first woman in the Bible
• 2. Semiramis, queen of the Assyrians
• 3. Opis, wife of Saturn
• 4. Juno, goddess of the Kingdoms
• 5. Ceres, goddess of the harvest and queen of Sicily
• 6. Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy
• 7. Venus, queen of Cyprus
• 8. Isis, queen and goddess of Egypt
• 9. Europa, queen of Crete
• 10. Libya, queen of Libya
• 11 and 12. Marpesia and Lampedo, queens of the Amazons
• 13. Thisbe, a Babylonian maiden
• 14. Hypermnestra, queen of the Argives and priestess of Juno
• 15. Niobe, queen of Thebes
• 16. Hypsipyle, queen of Lemnos
• 17. Medea, queen of Colchis and lover of Jason in the "Argonautica"
• 18. Arachne of Colophon
• 19 and 20. Orithyia and Antiope, queens of the Amazons
• 21. Erythraea or Heriphile, a Sibyl
• 22. Medusa, daughter of Phorcus
• 23. Iole, daughter of the king of the Aetolians
• 24. Deianira, wife of Hercules
• 25. Jocasta, queen of Thebes
• 26. Amaltheia or Deiphebe, a Sibyl
• 27. Nicostrata, or Carmenta, daughter of King Ionius
• 28. Procris, wife of Cephalus
• 29. Argia, wife of Polynices and daughter of King Adrastus
• 30. Manto, daughter of Tiresias
• 31. The wives of the Minyans
• 32. Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons
• 33. Polyxena, daughter of King Priam
• 34. Hecuba, queen of the Trojans
• 35. Cassandra, daughter of King Priam of Troy
• 36. Clytemnestra, queen of Mycenae
• 37. Helen of Troy, whose abduction by Paris began the Trojan War
• 38. Circe, daughter of the Sun
• 39. Camilla, queen of the Volscians
• 40. Penelope, wife of Ulysses
• 41. Lavinia, queen of Laurentum
• 42. Dido, or Elissa, queen of Carthage
• 43. Nicaula, queen of Ethiopia
• 44. Pamphile, daughter of Platea
• 45. Rhea Ilia, a Vestal Virgin
• 46. Gaia Cyrilla (Tanaquil), wife of King Tarquinius Priscus
• 47. Sappho, poet from the island of Lesbos
• 48. Lucretia, wife of Collatinus
• 49. Tamyris, queen of Scythia
• 50. Leaena, a courtesan who was tortured to death by the dictator Hippias
• 51. Athaliah, queen of Jerusalem
• 52. Cloelia, a Roman maiden
• 53. Hippo, a Greek woman
• 54. Megullia Dotata
• 55. Veturia, a Roman matron
• 56. Thamyris, daughter of Micon
• 57. A conflation of Artemisia II and Artemisia I, queens of Caria
• 58. Verginia, virgin and daughter of Virginius
• 59. Eirene, daughter of Cratinus
• 60. Leontium
• 61. Olympias, queen of Macedonia
• 62. Claudia, a Vestal Virgin
• 63. Virginia, wife of Lucius Volumnius
• 64. Flora, goddess of flowers and wife of Zephyrus
• 65. A young Roman woman
• 66. Marcia, daughter of Varro
• 67. Sulpicia, wife of Quintus Fulvius Flaccus
• 68. Harmonia, daughter of Gelon, son of Hiero II of Syracuse
• 69. Busa of Canosa di Puglia
• 70. Sophonisba, queen of Numidia
• 71. Theoxena, daughter of Prince Herodicus
• 72. Berenice, queen of Cappadocia
• 73. The Wife of Orgiagon the Galatian
• 74. Tertia Aemilia, wife of the elder Africanus
• 75. Dripetrua, queen of Laodice
• 76. Sempronia, daughter of Gracchus
• 77. Claudia Quinta, a Roman woman
• 78. Hypsicratea, Queen of Pontus
• 79. Sempronia, a Roman Woman
• 80. The Wives of the Cimbrian
• 81. Julia, daughter of the dictator Julius Caesar
• 82. Portia, daughter of Cato Uticensis
• 83. Curia, wife of Quintus Lucretius
• 84. Hortensia, daughter of Quintus Hortensius
• 85. Sulpicia, wife of Cruscellio
• 86. Cornificia, a poet
• 87. Mariamme, queen of Judaea
• 88. Cleopatra, queen of Egypt
• 89. Antonia, daughter of Antony
• 90. Agrippina, wife of Germanicus
• 91. Paulina, a Roman woman seduced by Decius Mundus pretending to be Anubis
• 92. Agrippina, mother of the Emperor Nero
• 93. Epicharis, a freedwoman
• 94. Pompeia Paulina, wife of Seneca
• 95. Poppaea Sabina, wife of Nero
• 96. Triaria, wife of Lucius Vitellius
• 97. Proba, wife of Adelphus
• 98. Faustina Augusta
• 99. Symiamira, woman of Emesa
• 100. Zenobia, queen of Palmyra
• 101. Joan, an Englishwoman and Pope
• 102. Irene, Empress of Constantinople
• 103. Gualdrada, a Florentine maiden
• 104. Constance, Empress of Rome and queen of Sicily
• 105. Camiola, a Sienese widow
• 106. Joanna, queen of Jerusalem and Sicily

References

Citations

1. Royal 16 G V Archived 2018-08-16 at the Wayback Machine fol. 3v
2. Boccaccio (2003), p. xi
3. Anderson (2003), p. 50.

Bibliography

• Anderson, Jaynie (2003), Tiepolo's Cleopatra, Melbourne: Macmillan, ISBN 9781876832445.
• Boccaccio, Giovanni (2003). Famous Women. I Tatti Renaissance Library. Vol. 1. Translated by Virginia Brown. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-01130-9.
• Boitani, Piero (1976). "The Monk's Tale: Dante and Boccaccio". Medium Ævum. 45 (1): 50–69. doi:10.2307/43628171. JSTOR 43628171.
• Watanabe-O'Kelly, Helen (2010), Beauty Or Beast?: The Woman Warrior in the German Imagination from the Renaissance to the Present, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199558230

Further reading

Primary sources

• Boccaccio, Poeet Ende Philosophe, Bescrivende van den Doorluchtighen, Glorioesten ende Edelsten Vrouwen (Antwerp, 1525)
• Boccaccio, Tractado de John Bocacio, de las Claras, Excellentes y Mas Famosas y Senaladas Damas (Zaragoza, 1494)
• Boccaccio, De la Louenge et Vertu des Nobles et Cleres Dames (Paris, 1493)
• Boccaccio, De Preclaris Mulieribus (Strassburg, 1475)
• Boccaccio, De Preclaris Mulieribus (Louvain, 1487)
• Boccaccio, De Mulieribus Claris (Bern, 1539)
• Boccaccio, De Mulieribus Claris (Ulm, 1473)
• Boccaccio, French translation (Paris, 1405)

Secondary sources

• Schleich, G. ed., Die mittelenglische Umdichtung von Boccaccio De claris mulieribus, nebst der latinischen Vorlage, Palaestra (Leipzig, 1924)
• Wright, H.G., ed., Translated from Boccaccio's De Claris Mulieribus, Early English Text Society, Original series w/Latin (London, 1943)
• Guarino, G. A., Boccaccio, Concerning Famous Women (New Brunswick, N.J., 1963)
• Zaccaria, V., ed., De mulieribus claris with Italian translation (Milan, 1967 and 1970)
• Branca, V., ed., Tutte le opere di Giovani Boccaccio, volume 10 (1967)
• Zaccaria, V., ed., De mulieribus claris, Studi sul Boccaccio (Milan, 1963)
• Müller, Ricarda, Ein Frauenbuch des frühen Humanismus. Untersuchungen zu Boccaccios De mulieribus claris (Stuttgart, 1992), ISBN 978-3-515-06028-8
• Kolsky, S. , Ghost of Boccaccio: Writings on Famous Women, (2005)
• Franklin, M., Boccaccio's Heroines: Power and Virtue in Renaissance Society (2006)
• Filosa, E., Tre Studi sul De mulieribus claris (2012)

External links

• The Genealogy of Women: Studies in Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris Archived 2008-01-31 at the Wayback Machine
• The ghost of Boccaccio: writings on famous women in Renaissance Italy
• Its publishing development history by Guyda Armstrong of Brown University Archived 2018-08-08 at the Wayback Machine