On Famous Women

— X —

...slated by Master Donato of Casentino Donato Albanzani (c. 1328–1411), a scholar and friend of Petrarch and Boccaccio. for the magnificent Marquis Niccolò da Este Niccolò III d'Este (1383–1441), Marquis of Ferrara., prince and lord of Ferrara.

This second Turin codex is marked with the letter A in the frequent citations within the notes.
The brief passages provided here from the two Turin codices of the volgarizzamento: the practice of translating Latin works into the common Italian "vulgar" tongue. of Famous Women are sufficient to show that, while the translator was indeed Tuscan—and such was certainly Albanzani, possessing the great learning attributed to him by his contemporaries (See Mehus, Preface and Life of Ambrogio Traversari the Camaldolese)—the amanuenses: professional scribes who hand-copied manuscripts. certainly were not Tuscan. Consequently, even if they had produced their copies from excellent source texts, they almost always resulted in corrupted word endings (particularly in verb forms) and sometimes in the substance of the words themselves, due to a failure to understand their meaning. Nevertheless, judging by several passages published in the notes by Father Tosti, the Cassino codex The manuscript held at the monastery of Monte Cassino. is, on the whole, of inferior quality compared to the two Turin manuscripts. As one example among many that could be cited, consider this excerpt from Chapter XXI, Iole, Queen of Aetolia, which reads on page 57: "Because of which it happened that Hercules fell into that shameful ob—" The text likely intended "obbrobrio" (disgrace/shame).