Friday, November 18, 2011

Fashion in the Quattrocento (1400's)

I have been immersed for the past few days in research on the dress of Renaissance women in Florence.  Apparently there are no extant garments, so everything we know is either pictorial (mainly frescoes) or from descriptions in correspondence.  I have just reached the chapters in Iris Origo's "Merchant of Prato" in which the wardrobes of the master and mistress are detailed.  Women had basically three types of garments:  a camicia, or chemise, sometimes called a shift, next to the skin; a gamurra (or camora), a gown worn as the middle of three garments; and the cioppa or giornea, which were types of overdresses.  One of the best opportunities to study further will be when next I go to Santa Maria Novella and visit Ghirlandaio's fresco cycles in the Tournabuoni Chapel.

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