THE "PEACOCK" GOWN



NOTE: This site has been re-written since I first started on this project. I went with what the authour of "Medici Women" said about the colour pavonazzo, that it was a peacock blue colour. Turns out pavonazzo is a more brownish purple shade, as seen in the peahen. Thanks to Bella for pointing this out. However, I've seen panni paonacei (basically "peacock fabric") listed. Florence is said to have been especially famous for it, and Pastoureau (Pastoureau 2001) describes as "a peacock blue hue". "Moda a Firenze", on the other hand describes "pagonazzo", which Eleonora di Toledo seems to have been fond of, as the more purplish hue. So... take a pick?



FIRST THINGS FIRST
Since I was a small child and saw a pre-Raphaelite painting of a lady in a pale blue dress kissing a cloak-dressed man, I've wanted a blue Renaissance outfit. And some years ago I got this amazing high-quality cotton of a lovely sky blue hue, and I've tried to find a suitable project for it. I wanted a blue Renaissance dress. But how period is it? I mean, a pre-Raphaelite painting shows how the 19.th century artists imagined the Renaissance.

There aren't too many clear blue dresses to be found in 16.th century paintings. Red and green dresses are all over the place. And golden ones. And black? Oh, you bet. White? Bring'em on. But bright blue? Not too often. The rarity of clear blue dresses might be due to the difficulty of creating such a hue for fabrics - it was expensive. And not only for fabrics. "Real" blue (i.e. ultramarine) was only used for the finest and most important works of art. But on the other hand, that would often make a colour more sought-after, especially by nobility. Here are some:

GALLERY 1




1. The Return of Odysseus, ca. 1509, Pinturicchio (National Gallery, London)
2. 1530-1540, Zuccari? (?)
3. Chapel fresco, mid-1500's, Federico Zuccari (Basilica of Loreto, Italy)
4. Chapel fresco, 1540's, Lombardian school (In situ in Lombardia)
5. Portrait of Dianora di Toledo de' Medici, ca. 1571, Alessandro Allori (Kunsthistorischen museum, Vienna)
6. Miniature of Dianora di Toledo de' Medici, ca. 1571, Alessandro Allori (Thyssen-Bornemisza Collections)
7. Portrait of the Volta family, ca. 1547, Lorenzo Lotto (National Gallery, London)
8. Porrait of the lady of the house, ca. 1561, Veronese (in situ at Villa Barbaro, Maser)
9. Pope Alexander III and Emperor Frederick I, 1560's, Vasari or Veronese?, (Sala Regia, Venice)
10. Judith, ca. 1596, Fede Galizia (private collection?)


I'm not claiming all the above dresses show the "peacock" colour I'm referring to - I think only the Allori portrait(s) of Dianora di Toledo de' Medici is close with its blue-greenish hue. But they show clear blue dresses, which is what I'm interested in in general. That's how my fabric looks.

Two different books in my possession tells bright blue being used in Renaissance Florence. One is a book about the Medici Women (Langdon 2006), the other is the Moda a Firenze (Landini 2005). Langdon tells about the tragic destiny of Eleonora (Dianora) di Toledo de Medici (1553-1576). She was the niece of Eleonora di Toledo, and grew up in the Medici court with the Duke's children. She was strangled by her husband Pietro de' Medici in 1576, 23 years old because of suspected infidelity (Langdon 2006: 176), and her memory was almost erased from history. Langdon argues convincingly that Allori's portrait of a young lady in blue, today called "Maria de' Medici", is instead that of Dianora (see Langdon 173 pp).

The book claims that the pavonazzo was a hue ...so prized by her aunt, Eleonora di Toledo (Langdon 2006: 174), and that the colour was a part of Eleonora's impresa (her personal symbols) (Langdon 2006: 175). The reason for this might be that the pavonazzo (which can translate to "peafowl coloured"), was the colour of Juno and her peafowls. Juno represented fertility and was a popular bride symbol, and had been linked to Eleonora di Toledo all since her marriage to Cosimo I de' Medici in 1539. She was to be presented as Eleonora genetrix (Cox-Rearick 1993: 30), something she also managed to live up to in real life: she gave birth to 11 children. And interesting enough, it is Juno with nymphs of the air, who is painted on the backside of the Dianora miniature.

But the book identifies pavonazzo as a blue hue similar to that Dianora is wearing in her portrait(s). Although the definite hue of this term is disputed, most sources lists it as being made by a reddish dye, which would give dark red, purple and brownish shades. The meaning of the word pavonazzo(peafowl, but with negative ending) might be to blame for this. A peacock (male) would be blue as in the portrait, whereas a peahen (female) would have a deeper brownish red shade. The term is probably referring to the latter.


The book Moda a Firenze, which concentrates on Eleonora di Toledo and the impact she had on Florentine fashion in the mid-1500's, has a rather complete inventory list in the back. This list is a record of Eleonora's clothes and stuff. That list starts in 1544, but the first years are somewhat inclomplete and refers back to lists who hasn't survived (Landini 2005: 200). First in 1560 the details of the list (then referred to as Giornale) is so detailed that individual garbs can be identified. However, the lists are careful to mention various colours of fabrics, and the colour pagonazzo frequently occurs. At first I assumed it to be peacock blue (panni paonacei). But a translation in the book names it a purplish violet hue (Landini 2005: 58). The pagonazzo is a much favoured colour of Eleonora's wardrobe, occuring in the inventory lists app. 80 times for clothes and trims, and at least 12 times for various footwear. It is probably rather similar to what she wears in the portrait of her and the son Francesco from 1549:

GALLERY 2

1. Eleonora di Toledo with her son Francesco, ca. 1549, Workshop of Bronzino (Palazzo Reale, Pisa)


At the wedding of Isabella, the nest-eldest daughter of Cosimo and Eleonora, sky-blue dresses were chosen for the celebration (Landini 2005: 63). In the book this colour is called turchino - which I think can be compared to a peacock blue hue. The book talks about the Allori portrait of Dianora (here identified as Isabella de' Medici), mentioning her "...veste du taffetas turchino.... This colour is also appearing in the inventory lists, though very infrequently compared to other shades:

1545: a sky blue silk sottana
1552: a sky blue silk zimarra with gold and sky blue trims, and ditto sottana with gold and sky blue trims
1554: sky blue silk stockings in blue and gold
1555: a fur lined zimarra in red and sky blue
1557; an aqua blue silk robba with sky blue tafetta lining, plus an aqua blue silk
zimarra
1561: a sky blue sottana with ditto lining and trims

(Landini 2005: 201 pp).




MY PROJECT

"Moda a Firenze" do describe the blue hues as being typical for young girls. This, however, doesn't mean Eleonora di Toledo didn't have blue dresses. Assuming peacock blue and turchino both describe a clear blue colour which would be referred to as "sky blue" or "clear blue" in English, there are proofs of dresses (sottana) and overgowns (zimarra) of this colour being a part of Eleonora di Toledo's wardrobe. s And this is where my project starts. I want to make a dress similar to that of Eleonora di Toledo's funeral dress and the surviving Pisa dress, both from the early 1560's. They are well described in the Moda a Fienze, and the Eleonora dress is also dealt with by Janet Arnold in her 1985 "Patterns of Fashion". Furthermore, there are some paintings depicting this style very well:

GALLERY 3


1. Portrait of a lady, 1560-70, Florentine school (?)
2. Portrait of a lady, ca. 1570, Florentine school (?)
3. Portrait of a woman, 1560-65, Jacopo Zucchi (The Met, New York)
4. Arrival of Leo X in Florence, detail, 1559-60, Giorgio Vasari (Palazzo Vecchio, Florence)
5. Arrival of Leo X in Florence, detail, 1559-60, Giorgio Vasari (Palazzo Vecchio, Florence)
6. Fresco, ca. 1579, Federico Zuccari (In situ in unknown church, Italy)
7. Birth of the Virgin, ca. 1595, Alessandro Allori (Santa Maria Nuova, Cortona)


The Moda a Firenze argues that Eleonora's burial dress and the Pisa dress are almost identical in cut, and most likely made by the same tailor (Landini 2005: 74). Eleonora's chief tailor Mastro Agostino made most, if not all, of her clothes, and the funeral dress was the last registered in the inventory list before she died of malaria in Pisa. It is possible that the Pisa dress belonged to the duchess or one of her ladies-in-waiting, and that it was donated to the church where it served as a dress for a wooden statue (it was very common to donate rich clothes to churches; often they were transformed into church vestments). Using these two dresses as a basis for my own seems therefore logical.

GALLERY 4

The Pisa dress and Eleonora's funeral dress, pictures from Moda a Firenze and Patterns of Fashion - except the backshot of the Pisa dress, which Laurie Tavan kindly let me use for my site.



ZE PLAN

My plan is to make a sottana, a tight-fitting dress with a sturdy bodice that is longer in front than in the back, and with a skirt that is fuller in the back than in front. I'll add a small train, but not as long as the Pisa dress. There will be trims, probably silver or navy, in front and in the back, in the classical Florentine manner.

The bodice will be side/back laced, but not as far back as Eleonora's funeral dress. The Pisa dress seems to place it more to the side, which I prefer. I've never understood the logic of piercing only half of the trim with lacing holes, making such an uneven result, so I will avoid that if I can. Someone suggested this is because the Eleonora dress gives a slimmer appearance from the back, especially compared to the Pisa dress. It is a good point; however I think it's the trims that adds the slim look and not the lacing. Both the bodices in the gallery underneath have such trims, and to my eyes they look equally slim. The placement of the lacing, however, is different. The Vasari fresco shows side lacing, while the Eleonora funeral bodice drawing shows back lacing.



I will definitely add trims in the manner above, both in front and in the back. But the lacing is placed further to the side, as I prefer that look and as more period sources (I. E. paintings) shows this. I haven't decided on the sleeves yet, but they will be somewhere in between the Pisa dress and the 1545 Eleonora portrait - I think.







May 2009:
So far I've cut and boned the bodice: two layers of unbleached cotton with canals stuffed with rigilene, plus one layer of blue sateen. The blue top layers has been sewn together with the boned layers, and all that remains as of now are hand binding ALL the lace holes with a thread matching the sateen (halfway done). For my Unicorn dress I inserted metal grommets in the cotton lining, added the green silk fabric on top, pierced it gently and sew buttonhole stitches around in a matching colour. This provided me with extremely sturdy lacing holes that looks period. For the peacock dress I put the grommets directly into all the layers, and then added blue button hole stitches around them. I think it is a period approach. The Patterns of Fashion writes that Traces of corrosion show that originally the eyelet holes on the bodice were worked over metal rings. Although It doesn't specify that these metal rings were grommets, it does show that metal was used to strengthen lacing holes.

I followed the Janet Arnold pattern from Patterns of Fashion for the Eleonora di Toledo dress (page 104) for the most. It made a lot of sense when I studied the book and cut the skirt. Four straight panels, plus various bias strips of fabric inserted to give the bottom skirt width. Good use of the fabric for maximum result, it makes sense. However, I must have done something wrong, for the finished result doesn't look good. The front is odd. The skirt is too narrow and straight over the belly, and it drapes in an unperiod looking way. I have to fix that before I can continue. I added cartridge pleats to the back instead of box pleats, as many period sources (including the Pisa dress) shows, and it improved the look greatly in the back. It's just the front I dislike. Have I done something wrong? I guess I have, since I haven't heard anyone else complain about this.

August 2009:
Although I adore the silver trim I originally picked out for the project, it somehow looks to modern together with the clear blue fabric. So I unpicked it and added an ornamental, velvet-like black one instead. That trim was originally too narrow, but by adding two rows I got the broad look I wanted. And it looks really cool! I've used app. 15 meters of that trim, which was a lucky find at the Nordic hobby making supplier Panduro, and I'm so happy with the current look. I've also cut the bodice down a bit in the back. It's comfier and looks better.

Latest progress has been the making of the sleeves. They're loosely based on the grey dress in gallery 3, with 4 vertical bands and with slashes in between. They're lined with the same fabric as the skirt, and trimmed with the same ornamental velvet ribbons as the bodice and skirt. However, the finished result looks very... Elizabethian? I do like them, but they don't look as Florentine as I expected. So I think I'll attach small shoulder rolls to the bodice straps, and make another pair of sleeves (paned...) so I can change the sleeves at will. I have enough of the blue fabric, and I can easily get more trim as well.



More to come....



MY HISTORICAL RENAISSANCE GARBS:





REFERENCES:

Arnold, Janet (1985) Patterns of Fashion 4: The cut and construction of clothes for men and women, ca. 1560-1620, MacMillan, London
Arnold, Janet and Jenny Tiramani + Santina M. Levey (2008) Patterns of Fashion 4: The cut and construction of linen shirts, smocks, neckwear, headwear and accessories for men and women, MacMillan, London
Cox-Rearick, Janet (1993), Bronzino's Chapel of Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford
Frick, Carole Collier (2002) Dressing Renaissance Florence: Families, Fortunes and Fine Clothing, John Hopkins University Press
Herald, Jacqueline (1981) Renaissance Dress in Italy 1400-1500, Bell & Hyman, London
Landini, Roberta Orsi and Bruna Niccoli (2005) Moda a Firenze 1540-1580. Lo stile di Eleonora di Toledo a la sua influenza, Edizioni Polistampa, Florence
Langdon, Gabrielle (2006) Medici Women. Portraits of power, love, and betrayal, University of Toronto Press Inc. Toronto
Pastoureau, Michel (2001) Blue, the history of a color, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford


Gallery for Veneto - Gallery for Tuscany - Gallery for Lombardy - Gallery for Rome and Lazio

Renaissance dress glossary






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