The City of Ladies –Christine de Pizan
Finished in 1405
Issue 01 — Fall 2019 — Session 07 —
Microliteratures: In the Margins of the Law
By Jesús R. Velasco | Published on October 28, 2019
By Jesús R. Velasco | Published on October 28, 2019
Finished in 1405, Christine de Pizan's "Book of the City of Ladies" is part of her "becoming a man" that she explains in her "Book of the Transformation of Fortune." It is, indeed, a rather fascinating form of becoming a man by affirming female political agency throughout history. A book like this puts the historical affinity created in patriarchal societies between politics and masculinity in perspective. And she does it not only in text, but also in images, in yet another experiment of the capabilities of manuscript culture to engage with affects by way of combining verbal and visual culture.
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There are 26 extant manuscripts of the Book of the City of Ladies, plus 22 of the Trésor de la Cité des Dames, which she also completed in 1405. Many of those manuscripts have illuminations also designed by Christine herself, like the Book of the Queen or the manuscript linked in this article:
Christine de Pizan. Livre de la Cité des Dames. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Ms. fonds français 1177.
This is probably Christine de Pizan’s most read work in our times (but not in her times), and has been translated and commented extensively.
