Corti signorili e committenza letteraria nel Mezzogiorno d’Italia (sec. XV).

During the fifteenth century, some noble courts of Southern Italy, sensitive to the charm of the trends and tastes of national culture, became more promoters of an interesting literary production than others. In Terra d’Otranto, after the initiatives linked to the names of Maria d’Enghien and her son Giovanni Antonio Orsini del Balzo, it is around the count of Ugento, Angilberto del Balzo, that one of the most important centers of aggregation and stimulation of the province’s cultural heritage developed. Belonging to a collateral branch of the family of the Prince of Taranto, the count hosted a rich and valuable library in his home. The essay, drawing on the information contained in the Registers of the Orsinian Chancellery and, above all, on the Angilbertian inventories, aims to describe the book heritage available to the feudal class of Salento, commissioned to enrich the private collections of men and women of power, to satisfy their tastes, curiosity and thirst for knowledge.