Table of Contents

Contents: List of Illustrations and Tables AcknowledgmentsIntroductionPART I: GUILDS AND LABOR 1. Tailors and the Guild System 2. The Craftspeople 3. Tailors in Fifteenth-Century SocietyPART II: FAMILY HONOR 4. Tailoring Family Honor 5. Family Fortunes in Clothes: The Parenti, Pucci, and Tosa 6. The Making of Wedding Gowns 7. Trousseaux for Marriage and Convent: The Minerbetti SistersPART III: FASHION AND THE COMMUNE 8. The Clothes Themselves 9. Sumptuary Legislation and the "Fashion Police" 10. Visualizing the Republic in Art: An Essay on Painted ClothesConclusionAppendixes 1. Currency and Measures 2. Categories of Clothiers 3. Cloth Required for Selected Garments 4. Two Minerbetti TrousseauxNotes Glossary Select Bibliography Index

Promotional Information

This is a very substantial and innovative investigation of the clothing industry and fashion market in Renaissance Italy. Frick has done important and original work in the archives and successfully illuminates a crucial but little-studied aspect of Renaissance culture and economy. This book will find a large readership in Renaissance and early modern studies, in gender studies and the history of women and the family, and in social history generally. -- John M. Najemy, Department of History, Cornell University Dressing Renaissance Florence is a fascinating and wide-ranging study. It covers everything pertaining to clothing, from ribbon vendors to the great Ghirlandaio frescoes. No other study has taken this broad interdisciplinary approach to dress. Frick has a clear mastery of the complex technical vocabulary surrounding the creation of fashion, and the broad archival base of her study is impressive. -- Carol Lansing, Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara

About the Author

Carole Collier Frick is an associate professor of history at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville.

Reviews

A useful and timely undertaking. -- Elizabeth Currie Textile History A pioneering book on the sartorial extravagance and fashions in Florence. -- L. R. N. Ashley Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance A wonderful book, after reading which we will not be able to visualise Renaissance Florence in the same way again. -- Catherine Kovesi Killerby Reviews in History This lively book should convince any skeptic that fashion was a serious Renaissance business. -- Diane Owen Hughes Renaissance Quarterly This study nicely opens up a little-studied domain of Renaissance culture and shows the way to linking mundane craft with the dearest social aspirations of the Florentine elite. American Historical Review The Johns Hopkins University Press is to be congratulated for publishing this imaginative book linking the history of technology and guilds with social history, with the study of costume, and with artistic iconography... This book will be a delight for scholar and general reader alike. -- Daryl M. Hafter Enterprise and Society Frick's thorough treatment of Renaissance costume has set a new standard of excellence for scholars working on costume of any age. -- Sandra Sider H-Italy, H-Net Reviews The final sections of this valuable study on sumptuary legislation and the representation of clothes in art are perhaps the most effective in drawing out the significance of clothing in understanding social relationships and social power in Renaissance Florence. -- Graeme Murdock History Seldom does one come across such a valuable and entertaining book. -- Alana White Renaissance Magazine An important addition not just to the history of clothing, but to our understanding of social positioning within the visual field of Florentine culture. -- John T. Paoletti Journal of Social History A fascinating college-level study, recommended for any collection strong in fashion or Renaissance history. Bookwatch