Scriptoria e cancellerie nella Firenze del secolo XIV

In fourteenth-century Florence there is evidence of working practices and book organisation similar to those of monastic scriptoria: homogeneous codicological details, decoration and handwriting, as well as cross-collaboration and co-ordination among many anonymous scribes sharing different tasks. In contrast to early medieval monastic scriptoria, such practices are documented in secular milieux and particularly among notaries working for public offices, the so-called ‹Florentine chancery›, and collaborating with merchants within private corporations. This paper focuses on four case studies, which may shed light not only on these practices, but also on the intellectual environment of the city. First, it presents the book production associated with the early diffusion of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy during the second quarter of the fourteenth century; secondly, it focuses on a collaboration of scribes, who might be identified as notaries, in transcribing the vernacular translation and commentary of Ovid’s Ars amandi; thirdly, it discusses the co-ordination of merchants and notaries in writing one of the oldest copies of Dante Alighieri’s Convivio; finally, it shows the practices of study and transcription of texts under the responsibility of Coluccio Salutati, an intellectual and ‹chancellor› of Florence in the last quarter of the century.