Ornamentalism: The Art of Renaissance Accessories

389 Pages·2011·4.37 MB·English

by  Bella Mirabella

ornamentalism

Ornamentalism
The Art of Renaissance Accessories
Edited and with an introduction by
Bella Mirabella
the university of michigan press
ann arbor
Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2011
All rights reserved
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including
illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections
107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for
the public press), without written permission from the publisher.
Published in the United States of America by
The University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
cPrinted on acid-free paper
2014 2013 2012 2011 4 3 2 1
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ornamentalism : the art of Renaissance accessories / edited and with
an introduction by Bella Mirabella.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn978-0-472-07117-3 (hardback)
isbn978-0-472-02800-9 (e-book)
1. Dress accessories—Europe—History. 2. Renaissance.
I. Mirabella, M. Bella.
tt649.8.o76 2011
646'.3—dc23 2011023787
for lenny, francesca, and carlo

Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Dean Susan Wofford of the Gallatin School of New York Uni-
versity, Jane Tylus and the Humanities Initiative of New York University, the
Costume Institute and the Antonio Ratti Textile Center of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, and the Salvatore Ferragamo Company. I would also like to
thank Joseph Loewenstein, the Folger Library, and the participants in Pro-
fessor Loewenstein’s seminar Accessorizing the Renaissance. There are
many colleagues and friends who have offered insights, knowledge, and sup-
port, such as my dear colleagues Sharon Friedman and Julie Malnig, Anne
Rosalind Jones and Elena Ciletti, whose friendship and help have been in-
valuable, Henrietta Statham, Niall Slater, Janet Cox-Rearick, Jonathan Nel-
son, Carole Collier Frick, Pamela Brown, Natasha Korda, Susan O’Malley,
Rebecca Totaro, Rosamaria Loratelli, Beth Holman, Michael Neil, Richard
McCoy, Peter Stallybrass, Virginia Cox, Valeria Finucci, Karen Newman,
Juliet Fleming, Srinivas Aravamudan, Jonathan Gil Harris, and Philip
Lorenz. I want to also thank Nicole de Rise, and Nicholas Likos of the Gal-
latin School for their help in putting on the Renaissance Accessories confer-
ence at NYU. And then, of course, I want to thank my husband, Lennard
Davis, whose invincible spirit, enduring interest, conversation, and support
have been my inspiration. And then there are my children, Francesca and
Carlo, who have taught me to see beauty in unexpected places, and who have
shown me the necessity of accessories.

Contents
Introduction 1
part 1: dressing up
1. Scented Buttons and Perfumed Gloves: Smelling Things in
Renaissance Italy
Evelyn Welch 13
2. From the Sacred to the Secular: The Gendered Geography of
Veils in Italian Cinquecento Fashion
Eugenia Paulicelli 40
3. Embellishing Herself with a Cloth: The Contradictory
Life of the Handkerchief
Bella Mirabella 59
part 2: erotic attachments
4. Busks, Bodices, Bodies
Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass 85
5. “Had it a codpiece, ’twere a man indeed”: The Codpiece as
Constitutive Accessory in Early Modern English Culture
Will Fisher 102
6. Dildos and Accessories: The Functions of Early
Modern Strap-Ons
Liza Blake 130
part 3: taking accessories seriously
7. Chains of Pearls: Gender, Property, Identity
Karen Raber 159