Un incunabulo per lo sposalizio di Isabella d’Aragona: le ‘Nuptiae illustrissimi ducis Mediolani’ di Stefano Dolcino (1489)

Abstract

In the second part of the 15th century, the introduction of the printing press in Italy offered to lords and princes a new way to show their own power and divulge the splendour of the feasts for their dynastic events. In February 1489, Isabella of Aragon, niece of the King of Naples, entered into Milan and married the duke, Gian Galeazzo Sforza. Few months later, the printer Antonio Zarotto published a Latin description of the event: the Nuptiae illustrissimi ducis Mediolani by Stefano Dolcino. This paper aims at considering the history of this incunable, in order to find information about feasts and spectacles for celebrating marriages in the Sforza family. At the same time, the possibility of a propagandistic use of ceremonies and print in the occasion of a princely wedding will be investigated.