In recent years, the number of publications, conferences, and exhibitions on women as patrons of the arts and as collectors of manuscripts has grown immensely. When dealing with women as patrons, many facets have to be taken into account such as marital status, financial means, and political role within the family network. In the Renaissance, only a very small number of noble women actively built up a proper collection of artefacts, such as the Marchioness Isabella d’Este, the Archduchess Margaret of Austria and the dowager Duchess Mary of Hungary. Many more women, however, owned a small set of manuscripts and printed books. Lavishly decorated manuscripts were passed on from one generation to the other: from mother to daughter, from godmother to godchild, from aunt to niece and so forth. In addition to inheritance, books could be received as gifts or were acquired on the open market.

This may be one of the reasons why in the Renaissance there was an ever-growing number of illustrations in which women hold a book in their hands, whether they are female saints or the Virgin Mary.2 In other cases, one can enn counter the portrait of a patron or the image of a female author, such as Christine de Pizan (1364-c.1429). In a late fifteenth-century edition of her book Le Livre de la Cite des Dames (‘The Book of the City of Ladies’) she is portrayed in her majestic study (Figure 4.1), holding up a large manuscript covered in green cloth; additional volumes are placed on benches and in cupboards.