Florence Dressed in French Fabrics. The Clothing of Florentines Through Domestic Account Records of the Late 13th Century

Abstract

The paper studies the patterns of clothing consumption of the Florentines in the late 13th century from a corpus of domestic accounts, previously published, but never analyzed from the per- spective of clothing. It highlights the prevalence of some types of clothing (gonnella, guarnacca, etc.) and the low degree of differentiation between men’s and women’s clothing or between the clothing of the city and that of the contado (etc.), and shows that the criteria of distinction and hierarchy was not perceived at the level of clothing but at the level of the fabric. Moreover, it stresses the wide distribution of woolen cloths originating from the Realm of France (Flanders, Artois, Normandy, and Île-de-France) and, conversely, the sparse presence of Florentine and Italian cloths in the wardrobe of the business class, and then examines the market for woolen cloths in Florence around 1300. Finally, the last part of the article connects the results obtained from the corpus with a series of related themes, such as the history of consumption, the history of sumptuary laws, the social and political history of Florence and the history of gender.