922 margaret f. rosenthal
by his city to wear crimson in his outer garments.97 Vecellio remarks on
this custom when describing “the magistrates of Venice:”
... the leaders of the Council of ten of whom there are three in number,
who change every month and are elected by lot. these men sometimes wear
a red overgarment, which is true as well of the Avvogadori [state lawyers],
another position of high honor and authority, and of the cancellier Grande,
who, like the Prince, stays in office for as long as he lives, and whose propo-
sition is highly respected. the same gown is worn by the Dottori who go
to govern cities and important places subject to the Venetian republic. all
these officials wear pianelle and red stockings.98
While the older patriciate continued to dress in a sober black floor-length
gown exclusive to their social station, the younger generation adopted
much more colorful garments.99 in “Dress of Young men of the City of
Venice, and of students” (Fig. 24.7), Vecellio announces that young men’s
fashions of his day are indeed very “handsome and elegant, and [they]
allow[s] the wearer to move easily and quickly.” But he pays particular
attention to a number of specific fashionable items that he singles out as
so “lovely to see”—an embellished black cap, called “a tozzo,” of gathered
velvet in the winter and in the summer of canevaccia of silk or tabino [a
rich watered silk], or ormesino [a plain, light and inexpensive silk cloth of
levantine origin, widely produced in italy in the 16th century] with lin-
ings of colored taffeta. surrounding the hat is “a garland of margaritine”
[enameled glass beads] and a “medal or precious stone, and a kind of gold
braid interwoven with pearls or small crystals,” and a very colorful, and
richly adorned silk or satin doublet with “gold or silk buttons and various
trims and laces.” to this he adds that they wear “white ruffles” at the neck
and “knee-length trousers of the same fabric as the doublet,” both of which
are pinked and slashed so that they can “show off their differently colored
taffeta linings.” to finish off the ensemble, they wear hose of silk or fine
knit wool and shoes of moroccan leather, “made with great elegance.” so
elegant is this young man’s dress that Vecellio equates it to the rhetorical
brilliance of a certain “signor Fioravanti Foro,” whom he heard deliver
a “divine oration full of new and lofty conceits, in a lovely and agree-
able style embellished with marvelous learning and grace... that caused
97 Carroll, “money, age and marriage in Venice.”
98 rosenthal and Jones, ed. and trans., cesare Vecellio, Habiti Antichi et Moderni, p. 157.
99 Carroll, “money, age and marriage in Venice.”