Men's Public Identities Through Clothing in Renaissance Italy
Dublin Core
Title
Men's Public Identities Through Clothing in Renaissance Italy
Subject
Social history
Textile fabrics, Renaissance
Aesthetics, Renaissance
Renaissance -- Italy -- Florence
Description
Surviving garments, pictorial depictions, and essays on men's clothing in 16th century Italy. The intent of the collection is to demonstrate the close links between fashionable men's dress in elite Italian circles and the ideas that underpinned garment styles, as expressed in books of manners like Baldassare Castiglione's Book of the Courtier.
The Uffizi Gallery description is an excellent source for the context of the burial garments. At fifteen years old, he was travelling along the Tuscan coast with his parents Cosimo de’ Medici and Eleonora di Toledo and two elder brothers when he caught malaria and died of malarial fever, a common cause of death in the countryside in and around Tuscany. Guido Cavalcanti, great friend of Dante Alighieri, died of fever on the road when he was coming back to Florence from his exile in Sarzana (Fletcher 13). Garzia was buried with notable members of his family in the Basilica di San Lorenzo in a black velvet cap, the pictured red velvet doublet and breeches, a red velvet surcoat (a loose, often sleeveless, jacket worn over the doublet), and Spanish-style stockings made up of strips of differently coloured velvet.
The Martino Rota artwork depicts a man in the same style of garment as Don Garzia de' Medici wore when he was buried in 1562. The Book of the Courtier lays down the cultural rationale: "I am also always pleased when clothes tend to be sober and restrained rather than foppish; so it seems to me that the most agreeable colour is black, and if not black, then at least something fairly dark. I am talking of ordinary attire, for there is no doubt that light and gay colours are more suitable for wearing on top of armour, and it is also more fitting for holiday clothes to have trimmings, and be ornate and gay" (Castiglione 135).
There is no telling what colours Rota's subject wore, but its similarity in cut to the burial garments tells us how fashionable elite men would have dressed for special occasions in the mid sixteenth century. The Medicis were burying their young son, and they might have wanted to send him off in the very best fashion available, which would be appropriate to the dignity of the family. The burial garments are dignified according to the standards of the time, without the "strings and ribbons and bows, and cross-lacings" that Castiglione lampoons on page 135.
Garzia was Cosimo and Eleonora’s seventh child. His death came just a year after that of his sister Lucrezia, who died at sixteen. Despite how common children’s deaths were before the advent of modern medicine, their loss must remain unimaginable. Men and women loved their children just as much in the sixteenth century as they do in the 21st, and one must imagine Cosimo and Eleonora wanting to send their boy off to God and his ancestors in the height of style and dignity.
References
“Burial Clothes of Don Garzia De’ Medici: Doublet With Breeches, Surcoat.” 2024. Uffizi Galleries. April 3, 2024. https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/burial-clothes-of-don-garzia-de-medici-doublet-with-breeches-surcoat#description.
Castiglione, Baldassare. The Book of the Courtier. Translated by George Bull. Penguin Books,
1967. First published 1528.
Fletcher, Jefferson B. “The Philosophy of Love of Guido Cavalcanti.” Annual Reports of the Dante Society, no. 22 (1903): 9–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40178337.
Rota, Martino. Half-length Portrait of a Man. In The Illustrated Bartsch, vol. 33, edited by Henri
Zerner and Walter L. Strauss, 112. New York: Abaris Books, 1979.
The Uffizi Gallery description is an excellent source for the context of the burial garments. At fifteen years old, he was travelling along the Tuscan coast with his parents Cosimo de’ Medici and Eleonora di Toledo and two elder brothers when he caught malaria and died of malarial fever, a common cause of death in the countryside in and around Tuscany. Guido Cavalcanti, great friend of Dante Alighieri, died of fever on the road when he was coming back to Florence from his exile in Sarzana (Fletcher 13). Garzia was buried with notable members of his family in the Basilica di San Lorenzo in a black velvet cap, the pictured red velvet doublet and breeches, a red velvet surcoat (a loose, often sleeveless, jacket worn over the doublet), and Spanish-style stockings made up of strips of differently coloured velvet.
The Martino Rota artwork depicts a man in the same style of garment as Don Garzia de' Medici wore when he was buried in 1562. The Book of the Courtier lays down the cultural rationale: "I am also always pleased when clothes tend to be sober and restrained rather than foppish; so it seems to me that the most agreeable colour is black, and if not black, then at least something fairly dark. I am talking of ordinary attire, for there is no doubt that light and gay colours are more suitable for wearing on top of armour, and it is also more fitting for holiday clothes to have trimmings, and be ornate and gay" (Castiglione 135).
There is no telling what colours Rota's subject wore, but its similarity in cut to the burial garments tells us how fashionable elite men would have dressed for special occasions in the mid sixteenth century. The Medicis were burying their young son, and they might have wanted to send him off in the very best fashion available, which would be appropriate to the dignity of the family. The burial garments are dignified according to the standards of the time, without the "strings and ribbons and bows, and cross-lacings" that Castiglione lampoons on page 135.
Garzia was Cosimo and Eleonora’s seventh child. His death came just a year after that of his sister Lucrezia, who died at sixteen. Despite how common children’s deaths were before the advent of modern medicine, their loss must remain unimaginable. Men and women loved their children just as much in the sixteenth century as they do in the 21st, and one must imagine Cosimo and Eleonora wanting to send their boy off to God and his ancestors in the height of style and dignity.
References
“Burial Clothes of Don Garzia De’ Medici: Doublet With Breeches, Surcoat.” 2024. Uffizi Galleries. April 3, 2024. https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/burial-clothes-of-don-garzia-de-medici-doublet-with-breeches-surcoat#description.
Castiglione, Baldassare. The Book of the Courtier. Translated by George Bull. Penguin Books,
1967. First published 1528.
Fletcher, Jefferson B. “The Philosophy of Love of Guido Cavalcanti.” Annual Reports of the Dante Society, no. 22 (1903): 9–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40178337.
Rota, Martino. Half-length Portrait of a Man. In The Illustrated Bartsch, vol. 33, edited by Henri
Zerner and Walter L. Strauss, 112. New York: Abaris Books, 1979.
Creator
Meg Bohna
Source
Galleria degli Uffizi, The Illustrated Bartsch vol. 33, The Book of the Courtier
Date
2026
Rights
Copyright held for respective items by Penguin Books and the Uffizi Gallery. Fair use applied in an educational context.
Format
"Know Thy Shelf" Digital Exhibitions
Language
en
Type
Digital Collection
Identifier
https://omeka.ischool.utoronto.ca/admin/collections/show/62
Coverage
Renaissance -- Italy
Collection Items
Burial clothes of Don Garzia de’ Medici: doublet with
breeches, surcoat
The crimson satin doublet, with embellishments in gold cord and slightly padded around the abdomen, and the velvet stockings have enabled a three-dimensional reconstruction of the outfit, while the surcoat featuring a high collar and broad sleeves…
Half-length portrait of a man
A portrait created by Martino Rota (c 1520-1583) depicting an unknown man clothed in a finely made doublet, breeches, hat, and cloak. He holds a slip of paper in one hand, perhaps signalling his role as an important and literate man. Black and white.…
The book of the courtier
Discretion and decorum, nonchalance and gracefulness: These are the qualities of the complete and perfect courtier, described by Castiglione in a series of imaginary conversations between the principal members of the court of Urbino in 1507.…