Dressing the Part

Bronzino, with his unique strategies of portraits, needed to capture the individual he was painting. Some of this could be done through the environment and objects he placed them with, but a large part of the painting was brought by the sitter: their dress. In sixteenth-century Italy, like most of Europe, dress was a critical part of a person’s public identity. Dress could inform those around them about various elements of their identity: not just their wealth, but their marriage status, where they were in the social hierarchy, what country they were from, and sometimes their specific occupation. Laws regulating dress in Florence, termed sumptuary laws, restricted the wearing of specific colours unless a person was above a certain class or a part of a prestigious family. For instance, a sumptuary law, pushed by the Medici family, made it so only they could wear crimson colours. Some fabrics, like gold and brocade, were both regulated by law and were prohibitively expensive. Those who could afford to would constantly adopt the styles of those of a higher social status, forcing the individuals at the top to continually invent new fashion trends in order to differentiate themselves. Portraits reflect this sometimes-rapid change in styles, and thus portraits of older citizens show them lagging behind in the trends.

The same shift to Mannerism in painting was consistent in fashion for men and women, which both involved an increase in bulk. While earlier decades preferred elegant, straight-falling drapery, the fashion began to shift to more padded clothing that increased a person’s width and mass. Shoulder padding and the augmentation of sleeve size through puffing were common for both genders. Women began adding stiffness by building their stays into their bodices, while men saw their pelvic regions and thighs padded in codpieces and breeches and eventually adding stays themselves. More and more details and ornamentation were being added, such as folds, embroidery, pinking and slashing, gems and metals and the use of gold or silver threads. An outfit, commonly made of several layers, had specific pieces, like sleeves, that could be detached and interchanged. The slashing and pinking of a jacket or sleeve could reveal the underlayers of different colours, adding extra dimension.

Whatever outfit the sitter decided to wear, with all of its size and detail, Bronzino attempted to capture it perfectly. Of course, an individual could only meet with an artist for a short time, so it was often that pieces of fabric or jewellery or the entire outfit were left with the artist, so he could spend time painting it exactly. The trend of painting drapery, even though it was not in vogue in fashion, could be realised in the background, and Bronzino makes up for the lack of loose flowing fabric on his male sitters by placing them in front of a large swath of draped fabric.

We can see these instances of mid-sixteenth-century fashion in each of these portraits. Ludovico Capponi demonstrates the padded jacket, the slashed sleeves of a different colour, the prominent codpiece, the peaking out of underclothes at the collar and the sleeves, and the detail stitched into the entire ensemble. The drapery behind him shows Bronzino’s skill at drapery as well as giving a contrasting colour to Capponi’s black and white attire. Lucrezia Panciatichi shows the gathered sleeves, the contrasting colour of the lower sleeves, the structured bodice, the detailed starched patterned blouse, the jewellery and braided hairstyle. The portrait of Elenora di Toledo shows the dress of one of the most prominent and wealthy people in Florence. This dress would only have been worn for very special occasions, and there is evidence that she left samples of the fabric with Bronzino in order for him copy it. Its detachable sleeves and stiff bodice are of the time, and the material is incredibly expensive and impeccably detailed. This portrait would have noticeable distinguished Eleonora from others in Florentine society.