Resumen de Un cadeau pour Louis XI de Valois. Benoît de Nursie, Cicco Simonetta, le Maître d’Ippolita, et Jean Boucard: la politique et l’art des Sforza entre la Lombardie et la France dans les années 1460
The article is dedicated to Benedetto de’ Reguardati’s "Libellus de conservatione sanitatis", now in Breslau (Uniwersytet Wrocławski, ms. III. Q. 19). The codex was originally commissioned by Ciccio Simonetta, head of the "cancelleria secretaria" in Milan under the Sforza, whose coat of arms is painted at f. 114r. The frontispiece at f. 1r can be attributed to the Ippolita Master, a gifted follower of the Master of the Vitae Imperatorum, who was active in Milan in the course of the third quarter of the xv century. The border of the frontispiece, that presents three coats of arms of Louis XI of France, was painted later by a collaborator of the Ippolita Master, the one who also illuminated the "Cancionero" of Lope de Stúñiga in Madrid (ms. Vitr. 17-7). As stated by his note at f. 118r, the manuscript was gifted to the king by Jean Boucard, Bishop of Avranches and confessor of Louis XI, who probably came into possession of the item during the celebrations of the marriage between Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Bona di Savoia, in the course of may-june 1468, the same occasion in which the Cancionero was probably illuminated. Breslau’s manuscript is a previously unknown testimony of the Royal Library, and another interesting example of the connection between Lombardy and France in the Late Middle ages.
