La biblioteca di Alfonso d’Aragona e Ippolita Maria Sforza, duchi di Calabria

Abstract

This book reconstructs for the first time the library that Alfonso of Aragon and Ippolita Maria Sforza, Dukes of Calabria, assembled in Castel Capuano in Naples in the second half of the 15th century. Consisting of two independent collections, united by Alfonso after the death of Ippolita Maria, this collection was characterised as a princely library. It was, in fact, mainly composed of luxury manuscripts, made and illuminated in various cities, and was strongly permeated with the humanistic values and cultural and political ambitions of its owners. At the end of its existence, marked by the fall of the Aragonese dynasty and the dispersion of its possessions, this library came to number more than one hundred and fifty and was therefore one of the major private collections that existed on the soil of the Italian Peninsula during the Renaissance.