Down to the Last Stitch: Sumptuary Law and Conspicuous Consumption in Renaissance Italy
By Amanda E. Facelle
Honour’s Thesis, Wesleyan University, 2009
Detail from “The Adimari Cassone,” Giovanni di Ser Giovanni Guidi, called Lo Scheggia,( c. 1443–50)
Introduction: Fashion and luxury were very important in Italian Renaissance society. One’s appearance indicated more than whether one was simply attractive, it also indicated one’s social standing. It was commonly believed that if one could acquire the wealth and means through which to buy beautiful clothing and host bountiful feasts, one could rise in status and prestige. Since most of the societies of Renaissance Italy were relatively fluid, at least compared to other societies of the time, the prospect of upward status mobility by the middle classes through luxurious clothing and opulent public behavior was troubling to the upper echelons of society. The more people infiltrated their ranks, the more their power would become diluted. They would not have this, if they could help it. How was this problem to be solved? The answer, in part, lay in the adoption of sumptuary laws. This did not mean, however, that the governments of Renaissance Italy did not target sumptuary regulations at aristocratic and elite groups as well, particularly if merchants or the popolo dominated the governments. As early as the thirteenth century, for example, Siena passed a provision reducing trains on women’s dresses, which was a direct effort to curb a purely aristocratic style. We thus see the multifaceted nature of sumptuary laws and the motivations behind them. This thesis seeks to explore these various facets through the lenses of costume history, political context, gender, occupation and social class, and painting, so that we may establish the motivations for sumptuary legislation and examine its effectiveness across various cities of the Renaissance Italian peninsula.
As Alan Hunt contends in his comprehensive history of sumptuary law, an analysis of this type of legislation may be seen as an “exemplar of the sociology of governance,” by which we may understand more about the societies in which these laws were situated, providing, in our case, a more complete portrait of Renaissance Italian life. So as to not limit himself to certain aspects of sumptuary law, Hunt does not provide any one specific definition of the term. He argues that too often, literary definitions give primacy to the motives of sumptuary legislation, which then creates the problem of distinguishing between what he calls, ‘real’ and ‘justificatory’ motives.
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For the sake of comprehensiveness, however, I will venture to provide a definition, minding the fact that such an endeavor may, indeed, be imperfect. For the purposes of this thesis I will define sumptuary law as legislation that sought to temper personal expenditure on luxury items, as well as expenditure and comportment related to ceremonies such as weddings and funerals that had public implications in Italian Renaissance society. We thus arrive at the idea that sumptuary law was not just a tool used in an attempt to regulate peoples’ dress, it was a tool used more generally to regulate people in their relations to society. As to who these laws targeted specifically, we will see that this is a multi-layered question, for laws concentrated at times on elites, and at times on the working classes, and always seemed to target women, in particular.
Down to the Last Stitch: Sumptuary Law and Conspicuous Consumption in Renaissance Italy
By Amanda E. Facelle
Honour’s Thesis, Wesleyan University, 2009
Introduction: Fashion and luxury were very important in Italian Renaissance society. One’s appearance indicated more than whether one was simply attractive, it also indicated one’s social standing. It was commonly believed that if one could acquire the wealth and means through which to buy beautiful clothing and host bountiful feasts, one could rise in status and prestige. Since most of the societies of Renaissance Italy were relatively fluid, at least compared to other societies of the time, the prospect of upward status mobility by the middle classes through luxurious clothing and opulent public behavior was troubling to the upper echelons of society. The more people infiltrated their ranks, the more their power would become diluted. They would not have this, if they could help it. How was this problem to be solved? The answer, in part, lay in the adoption of sumptuary laws. This did not mean, however, that the governments of Renaissance Italy did not target sumptuary regulations at aristocratic and elite groups as well, particularly if merchants or the popolo dominated the governments. As early as the thirteenth century, for example, Siena passed a provision reducing trains on women’s dresses, which was a direct effort to curb a purely aristocratic style. We thus see the multifaceted nature of sumptuary laws and the motivations behind them. This thesis seeks to explore these various facets through the lenses of costume history, political context, gender, occupation and social class, and painting, so that we may establish the motivations for sumptuary legislation and examine its effectiveness across various cities of the Renaissance Italian peninsula.
As Alan Hunt contends in his comprehensive history of sumptuary law, an analysis of this type of legislation may be seen as an “exemplar of the sociology of governance,” by which we may understand more about the societies in which these laws were situated, providing, in our case, a more complete portrait of Renaissance Italian life. So as to not limit himself to certain aspects of sumptuary law, Hunt does not provide any one specific definition of the term. He argues that too often, literary definitions give primacy to the motives of sumptuary legislation, which then creates the problem of distinguishing between what he calls, ‘real’ and ‘justificatory’ motives.
Click here to read this thesis from Wesleyan University
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