Note *50 — Chapter XXII

The books, pamphlets, poems, and stories, both contemporary and subsequent, dealing with the position, beauty, learning, dress, etc., of women would fill a library. I shall content myself by naming a very few among them under a few headings for the entertainment of the reader. The list of works I give is, of course, in no sense a bibliography. The best source is Castiglione himself—for the sixteenth century and for court life, at any rate. But the picture he paints, remarkable as it is, was by no means altogether realistic, as a consultation with the following works will show. I have included a few dealing with earlier times, and have only quoted works with which I am familiar.

GENERAL LIFE.

Cecchi, La Donna e la famiglia Italiana del Secolo XIII. al sec. XVI., in Nuova Antologia (new series), vol. XI., fasc. 19-20.

Frati, La Donna Italiana secondo i più recenti studi (Torino, 1889).

Varconi, La Donna Italiana descritta da Scrittrici Italiane in una serie di Conferenze (Firenze, 1890).

Velluti, Cronica Domestica (Firenze, 1887).

Dazzi, Alcune lettere familiari del sec. XIV. in Curiosità Letterarie, fasc. XC. (Bologna, 1868).

Anon., Difesa delle Donne (Bologna, 1876).

Biagi, La vita Italiana nel Rinascimento (Milano, 1897).

Biagi, La vita privata dei Fiorentini (Milan, 1893).

Del Lungo, La Donna Fiorentina del buon tempo antico (Firenze, 1906).

Guasti, Lettere di una gentildonna Fiorentina del sec. XV. (Firenze, 1877).

Liborio Azzolini, La Compiuta Donzella di Firenze (Palermo, 1902).

Zdekauer, La vita privata dei Senese (Conf. d. Com. Sen. di St. Pat.), (Siena, 1897).

Casanova, La Donna Senese del Quattrocento nella vita privata (Siena, 1895).

Frati, La vita privata in Bologna (Bologna, 1900).

Belgrano, La vita privata Genovese (Genoa, 1866).

Braggio, La donna Genovese del sec. XV., in Giornale Linguistico, Ann. XII. (1885).

Molmenti, St. di Venezia nella Vita Privata (Torino, 1885).

Cecchetti, La donna nel Medio Evo a Venezia in Arch. Ven. Ann., XVI. (1886).

THEIR BEAUTY AND ADORNMENT.

In Florence, Siena, and Venice certainly there were regulations of the fashions; but not in Naples.

Firenzuola, The two discourses, Delle bellezze delle donne and Della perfetta bellezza d'una donna, in ed. Bianchi, Le Opere (Firenze, 1848).

Morpurgo, El costume de le donne con un capitolo de le XXXIII. bellezze (Firenze, 1889).

Zanelli, in Bolletino di St. Pistoiese, vol. I., fasc. II., p. 50 et seq.

Aretino, Il Mareschaio, atto ii., sc. 5, and I Ragionamenti.

Cennino Cennini, Trattato della Pittura, cap. clxi. Warning against the general use of cosmetics.

L.B. Alberti, Opere Volgari (Firenze, 1849) (Del Governo della Famiglia), vol. V., pp. 52, 75, 77. How a wife ought and ought not to adorn herself.

Franco Sacchetti, Novelle, 99, 136, 137, 177. "Formerly the women wore their bodices cut so open that they were uncovered to beneath their armpits! Then with one jump, they wore their collars up to their ears! And these are all outrageous fashions. I, the writer, could recite as many more of the customs and fashions which have changed in my days as would fill a book as large as this whole volume," etc. etc., with a long description of the dress of the women of his time. Consult all the novelists.

Dante, in Il Paradiso, XV.

Gio. Villani, Cronaca, lib. X., caps. x., xi., and cl.

Matt. Villani, Cronaca, lib. I., cap. iv.

Boccaccio, De Casibus virorum illustrium, lib. I., cap. xviii. He gives a list of the arts of the toilet of women.

Biagi, Due corredi nuziali fiorentini (1320-1493). (Per nozze Corazzini-Benzini, Firenze, 1899.)

Carnesecchi, Donne e lusso a Firenze nel secolo XVI. (Firenze, 1903).

Allegretto, in Muratori R.I.S., XXIII., col. 823.

Diario Ferrarese, in Muratori R.I.S., XXIV., cols. 297, 320, 376 et seq., speaks of the German fashions—"Che pareno buffoni tali portatori."

Gentile Sermini, Le Novelle (Livorno, 1874), Nov. XXI.

Marchesini, Quello si convenga a una donna che abbia marito (Firenze, 1890, per nozze). And Dialogo della bella creanza delle donne (Milano, 1862), pp. 30, 31.

ON WATERS FOR THE FACE, AND PERFUMES.

Falletti Fossatti, Costumi Senesi (Siena, 1882), p. 133 et seq.

Pelissier, Le Trousseau d'une Siennoise en 1450, in Boll. Senese, vol. VI., fasc. 1.

Sansovino, Venetia città nobilissima e singolare (1663), fol. 150 et seq.

Yriarte, La vie d'un Patricien de Venise au 16me siècle (Les femmes à Venise) (Paris, 1874), and see rare authorities there quoted. In Venice, the prescribed bridal dress seems to have been that of Titian's Flora—the hair fell free on the shoulders. The Proveditori alle Pompe were established in Venice in 1514.

On the whole subject see, for earlier time, Heywood, The Ensamples of Fra Filippo (Siena, 1901), cap. iii.; and for later time, Burckhardt, op. cit., vol. II., part V., caps., ii., iv., v., vii.