For women at the early modern courts, clothing and jewellery were essential elements in their pol... more For women at the early modern courts, clothing and jewellery were essential elements in their political arsenal, enabling them to signal their dynastic value, to promote loyalty to their marital court and to advance political agendas. This is the first collection of essays to examine how elite women in early modern Europe marshalled clothing and jewellery for political ends. With essays encompassing women who traversed courts in Denmark, England, France, Germany, Habsburg Austria, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, the contributions cover a broad range of elite women from different courts and religious backgrounds as well as varying noble ranks. AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
Anthropologists have long argued for the importance of examining all aspects of bodily display. F... more Anthropologists have long argued for the importance of examining all aspects of bodily display. For scholars such as Edmund Leach and Raymond Firth, complex headdresses, beards, hair (long, short, washed and unwashed) offered essential mechanisms for displaying status and position, both sacred and secular. 1 Other items of material culture designed to be worn or carried such as umbrellas, flywhisks, or buttons have similarly been investigated for their ritual and personal meanings in periods as diverse as Ming China and contemporary America. 2 At the same time, specialists in contemporary fashion have stressed the ease with which accessories such as shoes, handbags or sunglasses can convey social identities while women's veiling practices have also received renewed attention. 3 Yet despite the increased interest in dress and the body, items broadly defined as accessories have received little attention within Renaissance studies. 4 I would like to thank the British Academy for a grant supporting the costs of photographs for this article. I have also benefitted from the Arts and Humanities Research Council Network on Early Modern Dress and Textiles that ran from 2007-9. 1 There is a large literature on the anthropology of bodily display with a focus on hair. The most influential initial investigation is now much disputed,
Research for this article was carried out under the auspices of an Arts and Humanities Research B... more Research for this article was carried out under the auspices of an Arts and Humanities Research Board travel grant and the AHRB and Getty Foundation funded project, 'The Material Renaissance: Costs and Consumption in Italy, 13001650'. I would like to thank the staff ...
To investigate the development of the lottery and assess its impact, this article focuses on two ... more To investigate the development of the lottery and assess its impact, this article focuses on two cities where lotteries grew rapidly during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: Venice and Rome. It looks at the processes by which they were run, at the prizes designed to ...
Bernardino Corio's late fifteenth-century history of Milan covers the city's past from it... more Bernardino Corio's late fifteenth-century history of Milan covers the city's past from its foundations to the collapse of the Sforza dynasty. Following the historiographic traditions established by Leonardo Bruni, its essential outlines are founded on careful use of sources and, for more recent events, contemporary memories and impressions. It is, however, also characterised by judicious revisionism and anecdotal invention. The careful reader always needs to ask why digressions have been included and what hidden points are being made. It is therefore well worth inquiring why Corio, a member of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza's court, chose to link his master's assassination on 26 December 1476 with a passage on his chapel choir and musical taste.
77m article examines a treatise on the concept of Splendour from the late fifteenth century. Writ... more 77m article examines a treatise on the concept of Splendour from the late fifteenth century. Written by the Naples-based humanist, Giovanni Pontano, it deals with the domestic display of wealth. Based on Aristotelian modeb, the treatise opened up new opportunities for differentiating private forms of expenditure, such as the purchase of gems, vases and tableware from the public forms that were associated with the virtue of Magnificence, such as architectural patronage. This division, the article argues, was a rhetorical exercise based on literary models. It was not a description of actual practice or a manual of behaviour. Nonetheless, it provided a way of formulating modes of display that allowed the new class of wealthy administrators in the Kingdom of Naples to express their elite status without suggesting that they belonged to the royal aristocracy.
For women at the early modern courts, clothing and jewellery were essential elements in their pol... more For women at the early modern courts, clothing and jewellery were essential elements in their political arsenal, enabling them to signal their dynastic value, to promote loyalty to their marital court and to advance political agendas. This is the first collection of essays to examine how elite women in early modern Europe marshalled clothing and jewellery for political ends. With essays encompassing women who traversed courts in Denmark, England, France, Germany, Habsburg Austria, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, the contributions cover a broad range of elite women from different courts and religious backgrounds as well as varying noble ranks. AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
Anthropologists have long argued for the importance of examining all aspects of bodily display. F... more Anthropologists have long argued for the importance of examining all aspects of bodily display. For scholars such as Edmund Leach and Raymond Firth, complex headdresses, beards, hair (long, short, washed and unwashed) offered essential mechanisms for displaying status and position, both sacred and secular. 1 Other items of material culture designed to be worn or carried such as umbrellas, flywhisks, or buttons have similarly been investigated for their ritual and personal meanings in periods as diverse as Ming China and contemporary America. 2 At the same time, specialists in contemporary fashion have stressed the ease with which accessories such as shoes, handbags or sunglasses can convey social identities while women's veiling practices have also received renewed attention. 3 Yet despite the increased interest in dress and the body, items broadly defined as accessories have received little attention within Renaissance studies. 4 I would like to thank the British Academy for a grant supporting the costs of photographs for this article. I have also benefitted from the Arts and Humanities Research Council Network on Early Modern Dress and Textiles that ran from 2007-9. 1 There is a large literature on the anthropology of bodily display with a focus on hair. The most influential initial investigation is now much disputed,
Research for this article was carried out under the auspices of an Arts and Humanities Research B... more Research for this article was carried out under the auspices of an Arts and Humanities Research Board travel grant and the AHRB and Getty Foundation funded project, 'The Material Renaissance: Costs and Consumption in Italy, 13001650'. I would like to thank the staff ...
To investigate the development of the lottery and assess its impact, this article focuses on two ... more To investigate the development of the lottery and assess its impact, this article focuses on two cities where lotteries grew rapidly during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: Venice and Rome. It looks at the processes by which they were run, at the prizes designed to ...
Bernardino Corio's late fifteenth-century history of Milan covers the city's past from it... more Bernardino Corio's late fifteenth-century history of Milan covers the city's past from its foundations to the collapse of the Sforza dynasty. Following the historiographic traditions established by Leonardo Bruni, its essential outlines are founded on careful use of sources and, for more recent events, contemporary memories and impressions. It is, however, also characterised by judicious revisionism and anecdotal invention. The careful reader always needs to ask why digressions have been included and what hidden points are being made. It is therefore well worth inquiring why Corio, a member of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza's court, chose to link his master's assassination on 26 December 1476 with a passage on his chapel choir and musical taste.
77m article examines a treatise on the concept of Splendour from the late fifteenth century. Writ... more 77m article examines a treatise on the concept of Splendour from the late fifteenth century. Written by the Naples-based humanist, Giovanni Pontano, it deals with the domestic display of wealth. Based on Aristotelian modeb, the treatise opened up new opportunities for differentiating private forms of expenditure, such as the purchase of gems, vases and tableware from the public forms that were associated with the virtue of Magnificence, such as architectural patronage. This division, the article argues, was a rhetorical exercise based on literary models. It was not a description of actual practice or a manual of behaviour. Nonetheless, it provided a way of formulating modes of display that allowed the new class of wealthy administrators in the Kingdom of Naples to express their elite status without suggesting that they belonged to the royal aristocracy.
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