Barbaro, Francesco (1390-1454) De Uxoria Libelli Duo.
Paris: In Aedibus Ascensianis, 1514.
Second edition, quarto, Ascensius's woodcut on title page showing printers at work; ruled in red throughout, with capital strokes added by hand, along with colors and liquid gold added to the woodcut initials, bound in blind-stamped parchment boards, rebacked; later endleaves; headlines trimmed closely and in some cases cropped; final blank may be integral; 7 1/2 x 5 1/4 in.
"Heroines of antiquity were used as the ideal models for women's behavior, and in his De Re Uxoria Francesco Barbaro constantly presents to women examples from ancient Greece and Rome to stress his moral lesson. [...] Dido was described by Petrarch and by Boccaccio as an exemplum of faithfulness, since she committed suicide rather than marry King Massitanus, and Francesco Barbaro, in his De Re Uxoria asks: 'who can fail to admire, with the greatest pleasure, the chastity of Dido.'" (Quoted from Paola Tinagli's Women in Italian Renaissance Art: Gender, Representation and Identity, Manchester University Press, 1997.)
"[Barbaro] believes that well-ordered families maintain the stability of the state; and he sees that this order depends chiefly on controlling the activities of women in relation to the production and distribution of wealth. His thesis exemplifies the kind of reasoning that exponents of patriarchy, particularly as it is manifest in the male control of wealth, could bring to bear on contemporary social and economic developments." (Quoted from Constance Jordan's Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models, Cornell University Press, 2018.)
