The Padua Civic Library contains a number of precious illuminated codices dating to the signoria of Francesco Novello. An inventory written in 1404 documents that three of these were among Francesco's personal library - the inventory, by Francesco Zago, a Carraresi functionary, is now in the Biblioteca Marciana of Venice. The codices indicate the family's desire for self-celebration, as we also see in the decoration they commanded at the Royal Palace and the Castle. The Liber cimeriorum dominorum de Carraria, dated to the late 1300s-early 1400s, contains praises of the Carraresi written by the master grammar-scholar, Lazzaro de' Malrotondi da Conegliano. The book features gilded lettering, and pages that bear exceptionally elegant miniatures of the family arms with cart, surmounted by the crests of all the signore. This styling strongly recalls a room decorated with the same emblems, in the Carraresi Royal Palace, now the seat of the Galilean Academy of Arts and Letters. The Liber de Principibus Carrariensibus presents written portraits of the Carraresi signori, by Pier Paolo Vergerio - a scholar of literature, philosopher, doctor and legal advisor, during the last years of the signoria. Each text is accompanied by a miniature, matching the written description in every detail. There are various attributions for the artist, including Altichiero, Avanzi, and Jacopo da Verona, but the most likely hypothesis is that they are by an anonymous miniaturist who worked from the now-lost 'Signori of Padua depicted in nature', in the so-called 'green room' of the Palace. Novello's library also included an anti-Carraresi codex titled De traditione Padue ad Canem Grandem anno 1328 mense septembri et causis precedentibus, by Albertino Mussato: the signore had an apologia for the Carraresi written, by Pier Paolo Vergerio, and saw that it was inserted in the book.
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