[2] By the second half of the Quattrocento, the word zibaldone was specifically used to describe “a notebook that could contain a blend of literature, elemental science, (such as astrology, cosmography etc), prayers, and above all, personal memoirs.”[3] Like memoirs, zibaldoni are also family books, inasmuch as they were also created within a domestic environment and intended for limited private circulation.
[6] Due to the extremely high literacy rate in Florence of “at least 69.3% of the adult male population” in the fifteenth century, copying manuscripts was a very popular pastime there.
[13] Compiling these manuscripts was not limited to social elites like Rucellai, literary figures such as Boccacio, or artists like Leonardo.
As historian Dale Kent has shown, zibaldoni were copied by Florentines “in every rung of the social ladder of literate citizens, from Cosimo and Piero de’ Medici to soapmakers and saddlewrights.” And the texts they copied were as diverse as the copyists themselves: “Drawing on an extensive repertoire of devotional, antique, and civic literature, these informal personal books preserved the poetry, prose, songs, and snippets of valued information that comprised popular culture.”[14] The following partial list is representative of the variety of vernacular texts copied in zibaldoni:[15] Pseudo-St. Bernard Epistle to Raymond; The Rule of the Ancients - Theophrastus On marriage; Instructions on Taking a Wife and The Twelve Instructions for a Bride; The Rosebush of Life; Schiavo di Bari Doctrine; Antonio Pucci The Annoyances; Aesop Three Fables; Seneca and Pseudo-Quintilian Declamations; Albertano da Brescia The Doctrine of Speaking and Remaining Silent; Two Treatises on Rhetoric; Stefano Porcari Speech to the Signoria of Florence; Giovanni Boccaccio Epistle to Pino de’ Rossi; Brigida Baldinotti Epistle to the Sisters of Santa Maria Nuova; Ovid Heroides; A Love Letter; The Virtues of Rosemary; Pope Innocent III’s Eye Remedy; On the Care of Women’s Bodies; “Sator arepo” and Book of Dreams; The Flowers of Virtue; Pseudo-Aristotle The Secret of Secrets; Aldobrandino of Siena On the Health of the Body; Leonardo Bruni Antiochus and Stratonica; Cantare of Pyramus and Thisbe; Andreas Cappellanus The Rules of Love; The Dialogues of Gregory the Great Three Tales; Domenico Cavalca Lives of the Holy Fathers “Saint Eustachius”; Flowers of the Philosophers “Secundus the Silent Philosopher”; The Story of the Woman Who Was Too Devoted to the Virgin Mary; The Legend of Saint Albano; Simone Forrestani da Siena (Saviozzo) The Girl Betrayed by Her Lover.
Zeitschrift für italienische Kultur der Gegenwart (Journal for Italian Culture of the Present Day).