The incunabula for weddings. An early catalogue and some notes

The present contribution traces the printing and publishing history of incunable editions containing accounts of the wedding festivities for various Italian princes during the Renaissance period. A bibliological comparison of the aspects of these editions does not reveal the development of recurrent typographical features which might show the gradual emergence of a specific publishing genre. Moreover, the various kinds of text chosen by the authors of these publications shows how, in the 15th century, the idea of a small book containing an official description of princely wedding festivities had still to be defined, both in terms of the episodes in the celebrations which were worth recording and the choice of the forms of textual content and of the publication itself. The article focuses therefore on the sheer variety of the solutions which were adopted to publicise in print such wedding festivities and provides the first complete catalogue of Italian incunable editions on this topic as well as some notes which it is hoped will encourage further research into the aims of communication and propaganda which lay behind them.