Christine de Pizan: A Publisher's Progress
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Date
01/1987Author
Laidlaw, James
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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.