ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1588 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1588 ************************************ 06 Apr 1999 From: Jodi McMaster Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You whether is an appropriate name for a woman of the Italian renaissance, and specifically how the French name could be adapted into Italian. and are French or English forms of the Provencal , itself a form of [1]. This name was adopted into Italian in the 13th and 14th century as and used by royalty and, interestingly, by a magistrate in Sardinia who died in 1404. [2] The rest of your name is nearly perfect for your period. We didn't find the exact spelling , but we did find , a variant of that was common in 15th century Florence [2, 3]. Eleonora, daughter of Cristofano, would most often have been known as . If Cristofano lived outside Florence, he might have been known as "Cristofano from Florence", using the Italian name of the city. Or he might have been called or , both of which mean "Cristofano the Florentine". His daughter could have been called , "Eleonora, the daughter of Cristofano the Florentine." However, if the family lived in Florence, a surname based on the name of the city is unlikely: Calling them "the Florentines" wouldn't have distinguished them from anyone else in the city. In this case, it would be quite authentic to simply use the name . If you wish to be from Renaissance Florence but add a family name, you may wish to browse the following article: Family Names Appearing in the Catasto of 1427 http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/catasto/family_names.html We hope this letter has been helpful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. Arval d'Espas Nord and Walraven van Nijmegen contributed the research for this letter. For the Academy, AElfwyn aet Gyrwum April 6, 1999 __________________ References: [1] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). [2] De Felice, Emidio, _Dizionario dei Nomi Italiani_ (Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milan, 1992). [3] Herlihy, David and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, "Census and Property Survey of Florentine Domains in the Province of Tuscany, 1427-1480", Machine readable data file. Online Catasto of 1427 Version 1.1. Online Florentine Renaissance Resources: Brown University, Providence, R.I., 1992. URL: http://swansong.stg.brown.edu/projects/catasto/overview.html