Christine de Pizan: A Publisher's Progress

Abstract

In recent years there has been a welcome revival of interest in Christine de Pizan, both as author and as 'publisher', to use a deliberate anachronism. Thanks to the work of a number of scholars, we now have a clearer understanding of the part played by Christine herself in planning and preparing the presentation copies of her works which were intended for patrons in France and abroad. The suggestion made by Charity Cannon Willard in 1965 that Christine might herself have copied the text of the Epistre a la reine Isabelle in Paris, Bibliothcque Nationale, f. fr. 580, has recently been re-examined by Gilbert Ouy and Christine M. Reno who, in an important article, show that three scribes, P, R, and X, were responsible for a large number of the manuscripts thought to have been prepared under Christine's supervision. They argue further that the scribe X is to be identified with Christine herself.