A significant chapter in the history of Florentine costume was, unquestionably, the marriage between Lorenzo de’ Medici and Clarice Orsini. For the Florentine upper middle class this event represented the opportunity to display their social prestige to the highest degree through a vaunting of refined clothing. The wedding ceremony immortalized the clothes and accessories which highlighted the magnificence of the Medici court and the constellation of the highest-ranking Florentine families who orbited around it at a European level. The wedding and related celebrations, which took place for three days in the spring of 1469, welcomed around 400 guests. In order to participate in an event of such a magnitude, large amounts of capital were leveraged in order to present themselves in appropriate clothes and jewellery. For the occasion, sumptuary laws were issued designed to avoid excessive pomp, but these provisions, in use in other Italian city-states, were most certainly transgressed.
The wedding of Lorenzo and Clarice was also attended by the couple of Filippo Strozzi with his wife Fiammetta, whose dress for the ceremony will give us much food for thought to talk about Florentine summer wear. A leading light of the of the 15th-century Florentine bourgeoisie, Fiammetta Adimari belonged to one of the oldest families in Florence and her marriage to Filippo Strozzi (1) in 1466 marked an important alliance between two of the most influential houses of the time (2). Thanks to his skills in the banking field, Philip had earned considerable prestige which allowed him to obtain key positions in public life (3). After her marriage, Fiammetta led a quiet life, especially during the long periods when Philip was away on business.
In the spring of 1469, while pregnant, Fiammetta was visited twice by Lorenzo’s mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, who had come specifically to invite her to the wedding (4). It is evident that her presence was particularly appreciated by the groom’s family, but the pregnancy made Fiammetta’s participation uncertain. However, by the time of the third invitation, she had already given birth. Perfectly recovered, she was able to attend the wedding. The dresses she chose for the occasion represented an exemplary combination of elegant feminine clothes worn during the warm seasons: a surplice as a garment below and a giornea on top. There are no depictions of Fiammetta in these clothes but we can justifiably imagine that they were quite similar to those which the noble lady of the Tornabuoni family is
wearing in the scene in the centre of the fresco of the Birth of John the Baptist in the Tornabuoni Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio (5). A cotta and giornea are also the clothes worn in the well-known Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni by Domenico Ghirlandaio now in the Thyssen Bornemisza National Museum.
The family’s accounts show the types of fabrics purchased, the quantities and the cost. For the surplice, Fiammetta chose a crimson damask with gold brocade. This fabric was to be used for both the skirt and the bust. The sleeves, in contrast, were made of white damask brocaded with gold thread. The amount of fabric was equal to about 12 braccia, i.e., about 7 metres of fabric. For her giornea, Fiammetta chose a purple velvet (6) lined in purple and white damask. For this second garment, another 26 braccia of fabric were needed, of which 21.5 for the velvet and 4.5 for the damask. Toile and other fabrics completed the dress for a total of another 49.5 braccia. The final cost for the purchase of all the fabrics and small accessories was just over 191 florins, a figure which only a woman of rank like Fiammetta could have afforded (7).
The surplice, precisely because of its dual nature as a very refined independent dress (accompanied by a series of button closures or gold and silver chain links) and a petticoat on which to lay a top layer, was particularly versatile, and also suitable for the warmer seasons. The sleeves could be narrow at the wrists, slightly flared, or longer and abounding in elaborate ornamentation. The giornea was a surcoat open at the front and along the sides. Sometimes these openings would be closed with ribbons or cords. Due to its summer use, it did not have sleeves even if there are specimens with sleeves that could be detached or left to “dangle”, as well as winter variants lined in fur. This was a much-loved garment precisely because of its fluidity, comfortable line, and the ease with which it highlighted the underlying surplice in a sophisticated play of contrasts or echoes. With no seams at the waist, the giornea was particularly comfortable for pregnant women. It therefore exalted the value of motherhood. That said, we do have evidence of giornee with belts to mark the waistline, such as that of the young bride receiving the ring in the tender painting by Michele da Verona, now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. In a slight deviation to take into account the main trends of Florentine fashion of the 15th century, we cannot omit to mention one element which in many cases was innate to the most refined clothes: the frappa or fringe.
Although the Florentine sumptuary laws of 1456 and 1464 allowed a combination of surplice and girdle embellished with fringes (8), during the 15th century, at a legislative and religious level with the sermons of St. Bernardino of Siena, the use of this complex system of clothing with its sumptuous decorative apparatus that was still linked to the taste of late Gothic fashion was increasingly obstructed. “Frappate” clothes had large fringes to adorn various sections of the dress. They could be affixed to the edges of long “hanging sleeves”, the side slits, or the perimeter of surcoat trains. The decorations of these fringes included motifs of small leaves, peacock tails, or diagonal cuts made directly into the fabric to create geometric patterns.
Fringed clothes were a clear display of one’s status since they required laborious production processes and the use of the finest materials. A rare example of a fringed fabric is kept in the collections of the Prato Textile Museum (9) . This is, in all likelihood, the fragment of a border of a woman’s dress made of a brushed black woollen fabric with gold, silver and coloured silk embroidery that reproduces a peacock feather motif in alternating transverse gold and silver bands (10). Black was a precious colour since it required long and complex dyeing phases; among many other things, it also expressed the refined and elegant taste of French fashion. The embroidery was completed with a spun gold trim which marks the edge of each individual feather. The fabric also has a dense network of perforations along the edges of the peacock tail motif, serving to reveal the colour of the underlying lining which would certainly have been coloured in contrast.
*Note
(1) In 1466, Fiammetta di Donato Adimari married Filippo Strozzi, who had been exiled by Cosimo de’ Medici in 1434 together with his brother Lorenzo but was later readmitted to Florence at the behest of Lorenzo de’ Medici himself.
(2) On the events that affected Filippo and the correspondence with his mother before his marriage to Fiammetta, see Muzzarelli 1999, pp. 93-99.
(3) He was a member of the Council of Elders of Florence and held various government positions, demonstrating great ability to promote the inter- ests of his family and the city, thereby forging new ties with the Medici.
(4) Spallanzani 2012, pp. 311-312.
(5) On the identity of this woman, Silvia Malaguzzi has formulated the hypothesis, with which we agree, that it may be Ginevra di Giovanni di Maso Ginafigliazzi, a hypothetical second wife of Lorenzo Tornabuoni, based on the study of the jewels that the lady is wearing. What is certain is that it is not Ginevra de’ Benci, as erroneously reported by Giorgio Vasari. According to other scholars, how- ever, the woman could be identified with Giovanna degli Albizzi, Lorenzo Tornabuoni’s first wife.
(6) This particular purple (paonazzo in Italian) is a rather dark shade. Crimson is a bright, deep red often accompanying coral, vermilion, and other bright red tones.
(7) Spallanzani 2012, p. 319.
(8) Levi Pisetzsky 2005, p. 345.
(9) Fragment of a fringed dress with a peacock tail motif, Italy, mid-15th century, Textile Museum, Inv. no. 81.01.139.
(10) Black was the favourite colour of the Burgundy court.
