Details

Subjects:

Medici, House of -- Archives.
Medici, Bernardo de'.
Capponi, Alvisia.
Capponi, Niccolò.
Martini, Giovanni.
Medici, House of.
Trials (Murder) -- Italy.
Civil law -- Italy.
Civil law.
Torture.
Marriage.
Trials (Murder).
Italy.
Criminal law -- Italy.
Criminal law.
Marriage -- Italy -- Florence.
Torture -- Italy.
Italy -- Florence.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Legal documents.
Notarial documents.
Manuscripts, Italian.
Manuscripts, Renaissance.
Archives.

Language:

Latin and Italian.

Summary:

Miscellany of copies of legal and notarial documents, and trial proceedings, covering the years 1506-1538, concerning legal matters of Giovanni Martini, Margherita Mannelli, Bernardo d'Alamanno de' Medici, Alvisia Capponi, Niccolo' Capponi and others. The miscellany, referred to as filza, consists of 5 works, the first two written in Italian and the last three in Latin. The first document in Italian consists of trial proceedings pertaining to the murder of Margherita Mannelli, a Florentine noblewoman. The unknown author, who writes in the first person, appears to have a significant role in the trial, perhaps as a public prosecutor. According to him, the prime suspect was a man called Giovanni Martini. Moreover, Martini's name also appears in the second document in Italian, which consists of more proceedings for the Mannelli murder. In this document, the prosecutor explains that after many attempts to question Martini and another man in a kind and friendly way, he had to resort to torture to try to persuade them to confess their involvement in the crime. The circumstances of the murder are reconstructed and described in great detail and strong emphasis is placed on the premeditation and the suspects' intent to kill. The three Latin components of the miscellany are all legal documents. The first one consists of the proceedings of a trial between Alamanno de' Medici and Johannis Ser Pauli(?) for a dispute over real property matters. The subsequent document is an affidavit, referred to as confessio, made by Aloysium(?) for the payment of a substantial dowry to Luigi di Bivigliano de' Medici, who was to marry his daughter Alvisia. The last document also pertains to the marriage agreements between Alvisia's family and Luigi di Bivigliano de' Medici and contains further information on that matter. Several pages throughout the filza contain marginal notations (example on f.19r). Also contains a few notarial signatures and one signet (f.13v).

Contents:

1. f.1r-13v: Esami di Giovanni Martini et altri nella causa dell'homicidio della signora Margherita Mannelli (1506).
2. f.19r-30v: Esami e torture di Giovanni Martini (1506).
3. f.31r-51r: Acta tenute [...] olim Johannis Ser Pauli (1518).
4. f.59r-59[i]v: Confessio dotis facta per Aloysium et Biviglianum de Medicis (1524).
5. f.62r-153v: Pronuptiatio tenute pro Donna Alvisia filia olim Nicholai de Capponis et uxor olim Aloisii Bivigliani de Medicis (1538).

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from title page.
Foliation: Paper, 159; [i], 1-4, [i], 5-56, 58-59, 59-93, [i], 94-152, [i], 153-155, contemporary foliation in ink, modern foliation in pencil, upper right recto (f.14-18, 52-58, 60-61 and 154-155 are blank).
Script: Written in cursive script with a few documents in italic script, by multiple hands.
Origin: Written in Florence between 1506 (f.1r) and 1538 (f.62r).
Forms part of: Gondi-Medici Business Records.

Penn Provenance:

Sold by Bernard M. Rosenthal, 1963.

Cited in:

Described in Zacour, Norman P. and Hirsch, Rudolf. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania to 1800: Supplement A (3), Library Chronicle 36 (1970), no. 2, p. 96 (Ms. Lea 484).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 1537

OCLC:

378333358