History of Retailing and Consumption, 2015

Vol. 1, No. 1, 4762, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2373518X.2015.1015820

The livery of a Florentine employee in the fteenth century: the rewards of a

lifetime of service
Alessia Meneghin
The clothing of the workforce is a neglected aspect of the otherwise rich historiography of the
Florentine Renaissance. This study focuses on the livery of minor ofcers of the Florentine
Commune in the fteenth century. It sheds light on the clothing of the lower social orders,
and especially that of the household staff of the Parte Guelfa, the political faction that had
defeated its rivals, the Ghibellines, in the second half of the thirteenth century, and had
become a powerful institution in Florence, with vast real estate, nancial assets and
executive bodies. Liveries functioned as an immediately readable signal of the wearers
rank, social identity and even political allegiance. The article shows how the livery, which
exercised a direct visual impact, was used by the Parte as a political means to project a
powerful impression of itself, as well as to display honour and wealth. However, the Partes
attendants, who received not only a regular salary but also a series of bonuses, including
clothing, occasionally made dishonest use of the livery given to them in order to acquire
additional and secure revenue by resorting to illegal practices, such as embezzlement.

Recent scholarship has broadened our understanding of the lifestyles of the late medieval and early
modern workforce, yet insufcient attention has been paid to dress, and specically to its different
functions and purposes.1 While economic and material culture historians have contributed to the
subject by studying aspects related to the demand and consumption of goods and clothing,2
costume historians have mainly dealt with how sumptuary legislation disciplined luxury.3
Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DT,
UK, Email: am2253@cam.ac.uk
1

Marcello Fantoni, Labito, le regole e la trasgressione. Usi e simbologie delle livree alla corte medicea, in
Le trame della moda, ed. Anna G. Cavagna and Grazietta Butazzi (Rome: Bulzoni, 1995), 95107; and Jane
Bridgeman, Aspects of Dress and Ceremony in Quattrocento Florence (PhD diss., Courtauld Institute of
Art, London, 1986). Bridgeman, however, mainly considered high-ranking ofcers.
2
Richard A. Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1995); Franco Franceschi and Luca Mol, Leconomia del Rinascimento: dalle teorie della crisi alla
preistoria del consumismo, in Il Rinascimento italiano e lEuropa, Storia e storiograa, I, ed. Marcello
Fantoni (Vicenza: Angelo Colla Editore, 2005), 185200; and Bruno Blond, Retail Growth and Consumer
Changes in a Declining Urban Economy: Antwerp (16501750), Economic History Review 63, no. 3
(2010): 63863.
3
Diane Owen Hughes, Sumptuary Law and Social Relations in Renaissance Italy, in Disputes and Settlements. Law and Human Relations in the West, ed. John Bossy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1983), 6699; Catherine Kovesi Killerby, Sumptuary Law in Italy 12001500 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2002); Maria G. Muzzarelli and Antonella Campanini, eds., Disciplinare il lusso. La legislazione
2015 Taylor & Francis

48

A. Meneghin

Since the 1980s the history of clothing has consistently developed and has expanded considerably.4 However, the scholarship of occupational dress has changed little.5 Most studies focusing
upon the late medieval and early modern period have concentrated on the clothing of the upper
ranks of society albeit with a few exceptions providing scant information about the types of
clothing and accessories distributed further down the social scale.6 For example, little is known
about the clothing of the various types of domestic servants.7 Although several contributions have
analysed the role of those employed in the service of governmental institutions, little information
has been uncovered about the clothing of this personnel before the advent of the modern age.8
Greater consideration has been given to the clothes of the salaried servants and the employees
of the courts, thus deepening our understanding of how wardrobes varied according to rank, position occupied and even the political season.9
In the fteenth century, people understood that clothing was a signicant aspect of daily life;
clothes functioned as monetary investments and were often associated with specic social
occasions. According to one of the prevailing patterns of interpretation that has emerged in the
last 30 years, early modern dress was considered a manifestation of language and a symbolic

suntuaria in Italia e in Europa tra Medioevo ed Et moderna (Rome: Carocci Editore, 2003); and Ann
Matchette, To Have and Have Not: The Disposal of Household Furnishings in Florence, Renaissance
Studies 20, no. 5 (2006): 70116.
4
Negley B. Harte and Kenneth G. Ponting, eds., Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe: Essays in
Memory of Professor Eleanora Mary Carus-Wilson (London: Heinemann, 1983); Maria G. Muzzarelli,
Guardaroba medievale. Vesti e societ dal XIII al XVI secolo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1999); Carole
Collier Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence: Families, Fortunes, and Fine Clothing (Baltimore and
London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002); Evelyn Welch, Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer
Cultures in Italy 14001600 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005); and Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, eds., Medieval Clothing and Textiles (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer,
20052014).
5
Diana de Marly, Working Dress: History of Occupational Clothing (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1987);
and Jayne Shrimpton, British Working Dress: Occupational Clothing 17501950 (Oxford and Long
Island City, NY: Shire Publications, 2012).
6
The mandatory reference is to John Styles, The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in EighteenthCentury England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007). Also of use is Paula Hohti, Conspicuous Consumption and Popular Consumers: Material Culture and Social Status in Sixteenth-Century
Siena, Renaissance Studies 24, no. 5 (2010): 65470.
7
See John Styles, Clothes and the Non-elite Consumer in the North of England, 16601800, in
changes et Cultures Textiles dans lEurope Pr-Industrielle, Actes du colloque de Rouen, 1719 mai
1993, ed. Jacques Bottin and Nicole Pellegrin (Lille: Universit Charles-de-Gaulle, 1996), 295308;
and John Styles, Involuntary Consumers? The Eighteenth-Century Servant and Her Clothes, Textile
History 33, no. 1 (2002): 921.
8
Gene Brucker, Bureaucracy and Social Welfare in the Renaissance: A Florentine Case Study, The Journal
of Modern History 55, no. 1 (1983): 121; see also Alessia Meneghin, The Unglamorous Side of Shopping
in Late Medieval Prato and Florence. The Ricordanze of Taddeo di Chello (13411408), and Piero Puro di
Francesco da Vicchio (13971465) (PhD diss., University of St Andrews, 2011), 16570.
9
Lina Montalto, La corte di Alfonso dAragona, vesti e gale (Naples: Ricciardi, 1932), 45; Lewis Lockwood,
Music in Renaissance Ferrara. 14001505: The Creation of a Musical Centre in the Fifteenth Century
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 137, 177; Cesare Mozzarelli, ed., Familia del Principe e famiglia
aristocratica (Rome: Bulzoni, 1988); Peter Partner, The Popes Men. The Papal Civil Service in the Renaissance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990); Grazietta Butazzi, La magnicentia della corte. Per una storia della
moda nella Ferrara estense prima del governo di Ercole I, in Le muse e il principe. Arte di corte nel Rinascimento padano, ed. Mauro Natale and Alessandra Mottola Molno (Modena: Panini, 1991), II, 11932;
Gregory Lubkin, A Renaissance Court: Milan under Galeazzo Maria Sforza (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1994); and Maria A. Visceglia, Denominare e classicare: familia
e familiari del papa nella lunga durata dellet moderna, in Ofces et papaut (xive-xviie sicle). Charges,
hommes, destins, ed. Armand Jamme and Olivier Poncet (Rome: cole franaise de Rome, 2005), 15995.

History of Retailing and Consumption

49

representation of social identity.10 Much recent research into early modern fashion has been
inspired by the idea that dress constituted an expressive material language, capable of being
manipulated and therefore read by its wearers and those around them.11 In other words, clothing
served as a primer that facilitated communication among individuals and social groups, since its
language was universally understood by all social classes.
This article analyses a particular case of social identity not investigated before: how an attendant identied with the symbolic codes and rituals of a powerful and inuential institution in fteenth-century Florence, the Parte Guelfa (Guelph Party). The Parte Guelfa (henceforth
abbreviated as Parte) was the faction that had defeated its great rivals the Ghibellines in Florence
in the second half of the thirteenth century. It developed into an institution with vast real estate,
nancial assets and executive governing bodies.12 In the fteenth century the executive bodies of
the Parte Guelfa were composed of nine captains, two advisory colleges of 15 Priori di Pecunia
(responsible for nance), 20 Secretari della Credenza (privy council) and two legislative councils,
the Cento and Sessanta. With terms lasting for two months, the captains acted as the guardians of
the civic orthodoxy. They exercised ceremonial functions in the state; these included visiting the
Podest (executive ofcer), the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia (Standardbearer of Justice, the Prior
who was the titular head of government) and the Priori (the members of the Signoria, Florences
highest executive council).13 The captains responsibilities included organising charitable activities and making offerings on special feast days on behalf of the Parte. In the 1420s the Parte was
still rich and relatively powerful,14 but by the early 1440s it had entered into a state of irreversible
decline.15
While this article deals with one of the most intensively researched European cities, in its
most studied century, and with one of the most researched institutions, it considers aspects
that have so far been neglected, specically the dress of the lower social orders and the political use of clothing by institutions. In addition to exploring servants clothing, this study
also investigates the theme of embezzlement by workers, which will be analysed with
respect to the monetary rewards obtained through the pawning and selling of clothes
belonging to the Parte Guelfa by one of its servants. In fact, we shall see that, while
Piero di Francesco, the protagonist of this article, subsisted on a combination of wages
and clothes received from his employer, the Parte, he also illegally traded and pawned the
clothes he was given.
A nal point, which will be also discussed, is the way Piero used clothing in the form of
liveries in his determination to engage in patterns of emulation. Although it must be said that

10
On social identity, see Patricia Allerston, Clothing and Early Modern Venetian Society, in The Fashion
History Reader, ed. Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2010), 93110;
Ann Rosalind and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2000); and Marta Ajmar-Woolheim and Flora Dennis, eds., At Home in Renaissance Italy (London: V&A Publications, 2006), especially the article by Elizabeth Currie, Diversity and
Design in the Florentine Tailoring Trade, 15501620, 15473.
11
Ulinka Rublack, Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2010).
12
See Alison Brown, The Guelf Party in 15th-Century Florence: The Transition from Communal to Medicean State, Rinascimento 20 (1980): 4186; and Vieri Mazzoni, Accusare e proscrivere il nemico politico.
Legislazione antighibellina e persecuzione giudiziaria a Firenze (13471378) (Pisa: Pacini, 2010).
13
Brown, The Guelf Party, 53.
14
Ibid., 4654; for the political background see Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the
Medici (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 88135.
15
Diane Finiello Zervas, The Parte Guelfa, Brunelleschi & Donatello (Locust Valley, NY: J.J. Augustin,
1987), 536.

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A. Meneghin

Pieros choices may also be indicative of the social pervasiveness of certain modes and styles, this
emulative attitude is particularly evident in the specic requests he made to shoemakers and
tailors, and in his desire to exercise a certain sartorial freedom.

The Parte Guelfa and the clothing allowance of the donzelli

In order to discuss the livery of Piero di Francesco, it is necessary to consider the nature of his
ofce. More specically, the duties of a donzello (attendant) of the Parte Guelfa in the fteenth
century, and the role a donzello played during the numerous public ceremonies performed by the
Parte, must be taken into account.
Piero di Francesco, a native of Vicchio in the Mugello, some 15 miles north-east of Florence,
became a lifetime donzello of the Parte in 1430 and held this role until his death in 1465. His main
duty, like that of the other donzelli, was primarily to guard the entrance to the palace of the Parte,
which was never to be left unattended.16 The donzelli were also required to attend to the needs of
the captains of the Parte and to serve at their table. Finally, the donzellis duties included
accompanying the captains to the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia or to the Palace of the Priori as
required, as well as during all processions.17 In addition to these tasks, the donzelli were also
expected to distribute alms to the poor every Saturday, and deliver offerings of candles to
various churches in Florence.18 Serving as a donzello of the Parte required the attendant to
uphold the good name and dignity of the faction, and therefore strict control was placed over
the behaviour of those who wore its livery. The donzelli were banned from frequenting dishonest
establishments, taking part in prohibited games or eating with people who were indebted to any
individual or to the Commune; they were especially forbidden from consorting with these people
at night.19
All told, it was a comfortable, well-paid and secure job in fteenth-century Florence, for it
also included a number of additional benets, such as an annual bonus for the payment of rent
and two additional bonuses a year for clothing, the so-called stanziamento per i panni.20 In
fact, it seems that the position of donzello was among the best-paid occupations during these
decades for employees in the lower ranks of society, as illustrated both by the data from the
records of the rosters of the Commune21 and by those supplied by Piero.
The earliest extant statutes of the Parte can be dated to 1335. They mention the wages of the
messengers (messi or nuntii) and the domicelli or donzelli, which amounted to 5 lire per month,
and also an allocation for their clothes, the panni.22 It is stated that every one of the 12 members
16
Brown, The Guelf Party, 4950. The palace of the Guelph Party, or Palagio di Parte Guelfa, was located
in Via delle Terme, where it still stands today. It was comfortable and well furnished, provided with chambers
where councils would be held, meals served and banquets kept. It was also the place where nances were
administered and books preserved, and served as the residence of the captains when in ofce.
17
The Palace of the Priori (also known as Palazzo della Signoria) was the seat of government and residence
of the committee of nine Priors, or Signoria, when in ofce.
18
. State Archive in Florence (henceforward ASF), Capitani di Parte Guelfa (henceforward CPG), Numeri
Rossi, 4, Statuti del 1420, fols. 19r-v, 20r, 42r-v, 52r.
19
Ibid., fol. 19v.
20
Dennis Romano, Housecraft and Statecraft: Domestic Service in Renaissance Venice, 14001600 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 139. Monetary wages constituted only one part of servants compensation (and not necessarily the most important part).
21
ASF, Massai di Camera, Creditori e Debitori (henceforward MCCD), 2 (143048), fols. 64r, 102r-v, 103rv, 105r, 106r-v, 107r-v, 108r; Ibid., 3 (143048), fols. 65r, 67r, 68r-v, 93r, 104v; CPG, Numeri Rossi, 4, fols.
70r-v; MCCD, Uscita di Camera Generale, 3, fols. 63r, 66r, 67v, 69r-v.
22
CPG, Numeri Rossi, 2, Statuto volgarizzato del 1335, fol. 14r.

History of Retailing and Consumption

51

of the familia (composed of nine donzelli and three messi) should receive two garments each year
(due vestiti lanno), in summer and in winter, worth 10 orins each. When necessity arose and old
clothes needed to be replaced, the captains ordered the Partes treasurer to oversee the commission
of new garments for the donzelli, so that this will prove the honour and glory of the Parte.23
The next statutes, from 1420, state that the nine donzelli [had to be] dressed in identical garments ( e [debbano essere] vestiti pe medesimi vestimenti).24 Their wages amounted to 12 lire per
month (144 lire per year),25 to which additional bonuses for rent and the stanziamento of their clothing
were added, the latter accounting for 24 gold orins a year (88 lire). Twenty-two orins represented
about seven months of Pieros salary.26 These bonuses were to be distributed on 24 June (the day of
St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of Florence)27 and on 25 December (Christmas Day).28
For the rst time precise rules appeared in the statutes to regulate the distribution of clothes. The
donzelli, as it was established, must always be dressed in the latest new clothes, which they will
have received from the Parte (dovranno sempre essere vestiti degli ultimi nuovi vestiti e quali
dala parte predetta aranno riceuti). The use of the terms latest and new possibly meant that
the clothes worn always had to be the newest available. This regulation might have been intended
to ensure that employees did not immediately sell the newest clothes while continuing to wear older
garments in order to make a prot. The donzelli were not permitted to wear mantelli: according to
the statutes, they must not the aforesaid donzelli in any time wear cloaks without permission by
the aforementioned captains (non possino e donzelli predetti per alcuno tempo vestire mantello
sanza licenza de detti signori capitani).29 Given the function of cloaks in essence, to cover the
wearer the Parte seemingly sought to prevent the clothes of the donzelli from being hidden.
Their liveries also had to be visible to the public, for they were regarded as the Partes insignia.
Even the clothes appearance was specied: the panni had to bear distinctive features, such as manicottoli (sleeves, dangling down ones sides and usually lined, that served ornamental purposes),30
and had to follow the manner, form and colour determined by the captains. That the statutes are
suggestive of the existence of a livery, even if the word livrea is never explicitly specied, is
clear; in fact, they state that the donzelli [must be] all dressed in identical garments, and thus it
is assumed of the same colour(s). By dressing in such a style they all conveyed a single
message, which immediately distinguished the wearer and indicated his membership of a particular
institution (the Parte) and his place in the category of the donzelli.

23
ASF, CPG, Numeri Rossi, 1, Statuti della Parte Guelfa 1335, L, De salarius et vestibus nuntiorum. Ad hoc
ut ipsa partis guelforum demonstraret magnica et honorica sicut decet. Along with the donzelli another
category of salaried employees of the Parte, the messi or messengers, were also given clothes, but they were
entitled only to one garment per year, of 7 orins each.
24
ASF, CPG, Numeri Rossi, 4, Statuto del 1420, fol. 19r.
25
Richard A. Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1990), 438, Table A.1, 5978; Richard A. Goldthwaite and Giulio Mandich, Studi sulla
moneta orentina (secoli XIIIXVI) (Florence: Olschki, 1994), 910. In the system known as lira di piccioli,
1 lira was exchanged at 20 soldi = 240 denari. In 1456 the wages of a skilled labourer in Florence were
around 15 soldi a day, or about 37 orins a year.
26
Goldthwaite, The Building, 348. Out of an approximate annual income of 37 orins a skilled labourer
might spend about 40 lire or 7 and a half orins to clothe only himself; Goldthwaite and Mandich, Studi
sulla moneta orentina, 623; and Goldthwaite, The Building, Appendix I, 42930. The orino di quatro
lire (sic) to which Piero referred in his journals, with which he was presumably paid, is also likely to
have been most commonly used by him for his expenses.
27
Collier Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence, 81. This was also the date of the celebration of the victory of
the Commune at Campaldino in 1298 against the Ghibellines.
28
CPG, Numeri Rossi, 4, Statuto del 1420, fol. 19r.
29
Ibid., fol. 21r.
30
Rosita Levi Pisetzky, Storia del Costume in Italia (Milan: Istituto Editoriale Italiano, 1964), II, 3634.

52

A. Meneghin

A donzello was not allowed to sell or pledge any of the clothes given to him during the
year. After some time, however, evidence demonstrates that many of the clothes were actually
traded.31 It is not known whether the Parte decided to take action against this (mis)use.
Remarkably, it appears that Parte liveries were still being employed in this manner in the
1450s, as conrmed by several pieces of evidence found in Pieros books. Indeed, it is apparent
from the description of the expensive items he illegally traded over the years that Piero was
committed to taking regular advantage of the privilege of wearing valuable clothing by transforming what was severely prohibited by the statutes into a lucrative nancial advantage.
Although the clothes that Piero pawned and sold were readily identiable, and so potentially
difcult to pawn/sell, Piero managed it all the same. In fact, trimmings and other distinctive
decorations could be easily stripped from clothing, which could be rapidly altered into other
sorts of items. Piero often pledged his clothing with Isacco di Borghese and a certain Vitale,
both Jewish moneylenders. Francesco Del Nero and Antonio, two dealers of used garments
(rigattieri) who had their shops between the Santa Trinita Bridge and the Old Market, often
also engaged in business with him.32 Thus, a green overgown lined with grey cloth with
sleeves a ghiozzi (una cioppa verde foderata di panno bigio a ghiozzi) and trimmed with
backs of greater squirrel (vair), which was sold in August 1453 to Giovanni di Francesco, famiglio (servant) of the Signori, yielded nearly 7 orins for Piero (equivalent to almost 28 lire).33
Another overgown, made of green fustian, lined with squirrel haunches and trimmed with silk
(ormesino) strips (una cioppa di guarnello verde foderata con zampe di vaio e orlata di letti
di ormesino),34 was rst pawned for 2 orins in 1450, and after some time redeemed;35 then
in 1455, when Piero sold it to Malandrino di Vanni, yet another member of the Signorias
familia, it brought him almost the same amount as the other overgown (6 orins).36
These two examples indicate that embezzlement might have taken place at some point.37
Comparable evidence exists of similar occurrences elsewhere in the fteenth and early sixteenth

31
Bridgeman, Aspects of Dress and Ceremony, 139. Bridgeman suggested that lesser functionaries were
often lax in their observance of protocol, and were not strangers to the occasional practice of pawning
or even selling the clothing.
32
On rigattieri and pledges, see Bernardo Machiavelli, Libro di Ricordi, ed. Cesare Olschki (Florence:
Olschki, 2007), 467.
33
. Archive of the Hospital of the Innocenti (henceforward AOIF), 12618, fols. 24v, 26v. See also Carlo
Merkel, I beni della famiglia di Puccio Pucci. Inventario del sec. XV illustrato (Trento: Miscellanea
Nuziale Rossi-Theiis, 1897), 50; Anthony Molho and Franek Sznura, eds., Brighe, affanni, volgimenti di
stato. Le Ricordanze quattrocentesche di Luca di Matteo di Messer Luca dei Firidol da Panzano (Florence: Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2010), 272; and Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, Lettere di una gentildonna orentina del secolo XV ai gliuoli esuli, ed. Cesare Guasti (Florence: Sansoni, 1877), 15. When translated into
English a ghiozzi describes bag sleeves. The sleeves were baggy from the shoulders to the elbow, tight in
the lower arm with narrow cuffs around the wrists. Gowns a ghiozzi often appear in contemporary inventories and trousseaux.
34
Ormesino or ermesino was a light silk fabric originally from Ormuz but soon produced in Venice, and in
certain amounts imported from Naples and Florence. Doretta Davanzo Poli and Silvia Lunardon, Merletti.
Esposizione di una selezione di antichi merletti veneziani dalle collezioni Ire. Catalogo della mostra
(Venice: Ire, 2001), 191206.
35
Guarnello means fustian, a textile woven with a linen warp and cotton weft. It was fairly robust and not
very expensive.
36
AOIF, 12618, fols. 3r, 42v.
37
For instances of clothes perquisites and embezzlement in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see James E. Shaw, The Justice of Venice. Authorities and Liberties in the Urban Economy, 15501700
(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 1701; and Robert C. Davis, Shipbuilders of the
Venetian Arsenal: Workers and Workplace in the Preindustrial City (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991).

History of Retailing and Consumption

53

century, for instance at the court of the Duke of Urbino.38 Members of the Florentine Signoria
likely behaved in the same fashion. In 1466, 19 members of the familia were dismissed and stricter regulations enacted, regarding among other things prohibitions against the wearing of liveries,
presumably to eradicate fraud at its roots.39
The statutes of the Parte contained other prohibitions that were continuously disregarded. It
was forbidden, for example, to put money directly into the hands of a donzello (as was the custom
in the fourteenth century) in exchange for clothes or for the donzelli to receive money to buy
clothes themselves. Anyone tailor, doublet maker or furrier who had received money from
a donzello in payment for work was required to return the money to the Parte immediately.40
Nevertheless, the records entered by Piero reveal once again that he often anticipated the
amounts necessary to pay off his accounts with the tailor, the furrier and the doublet maker,
only to be refunded by the Parte later on. The statutes contained laws prohibiting the indiscriminate use of clothes as if they were the property of the donzelli; that these laws endeavoured to limit
the direct action of the latter on their liveries is clear, yet it is equally clear that in reality these laws
went unheeded.
By 1335 the statute read that one roba honorica had to be made for the messengers and the
attendants in summer and another made for winter. However, in reality it is apparent that the
single item of clothing referred to the roba actually consisted of a number of different
items of clothing that made up an ensemble, whose total value was equivalent to that of a
single roba.41 This assumption is supported by the fact that the statutes of the captains of 1420
talk of panni and vestimenti plural but never of individual robes. Besides, if expenses for
the clothing of the donzelli in theory amounted to 88 lire (22 orins) per year for each of
them, in reality individual necessities made these payments extremely variable: expenses were
lower when only new hose, shoes and shirts (probably purchased on a regular basis, unlike doublets and cloaks) were needed, while costs peaked when it was necessary to completely renew the
wardrobe. In the case of Piero, for all but two years his wardrobe costs were well below the gures
ideally allocated by the Parte for such expenses. The two years with signicantly greater funds
disbursed for clothing 1462, with over 44 orins spent, and 1463, with roughly 29 orins
were almost certainly due to the need to replace his entire wardrobe, made up of different garments. Conversely, the expenses of the other years were probably lower due to the reduced
needs of the same wardrobe (see Table 1).
If the Signoria was prepared to face signicant expenditure to cover the clothing expenses of
its household staff,42 the Parte was willing to dole out even greater amounts. The expenditure of
the Camera del Comune and that of the Camerari della Parte for the years 14301448 show a

38

Ordine et ofcij de casa de lo illustrissimo signor Duca de Urbino, ed. Sabine Eiche (Urbino: Accademia
Raffaello, 1999, reprint), 38. Also of relevance is Marco Folin, Roma e Urbino: due corti rinascimentali a
confronto, in Atlante della Letteratura Italiana, I, ed. Amedeo De Vincentiis (Turin: Einaudi, 2010), 757
73, 757.
39
Per rimediare ai molti inconvenienti che in tal tempo si trovarono in ciascuno membro della famiglia della
signoria et [ai] molti danni di comune che seguirono per la inoservantia degli ordini [venne stabilito] il
divieto di portare divise (To remedy to the many inconveniences that in that time were found in each
member of the Signorias family, and [to the] much prevalent damage that resulted for not following
orders [it was decreed] the ban on wearing uniforms), ASF, Signori e Collegi, Deliberazioni Ordinaria
Autorit (henceforward DSCOA), 34, fol. 164r.
40
ASF, CPG, Numeri Rossi, 4, Statuto del 1420, fol. 20v.
41
Statuta populi et communis Florentiae collecta (Freiburg: Kluch, 17781783), II, v, Rub. xvi, 230. Una
roba comprised a set of garments. It was dened in the statutes of 1415: una roba nigra, scilicet
tunica, guarnacca et mantello et una capellina (here in reference to mourning garments for a widow).
42
No clothes were provided for the nine-man executive group.

54

A. Meneghin
Table 1.

Pieros clothing allowance in lire (14441465).

Year

Amount

1444
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465

44.00
19.24
13.24
26.24
52.68
52.60
33.04
44.04
31.84
64.84
32.76
40.16
35.96
173.24
118.36
23.60
23.60

Note: The values for the clothing are shown here in lire for the readers
convenience, even if they were given in orins of account.

series of payments for the distribution of clothing given to their respective staff.43 Records illustrate that, while the Signoria gave additional bonuses for clothing to the town-criers (approvatori), the bell-ringers (campanai), the knights (cavalieri) and the cook (cuoco), it did not give
anyone in these categories as much as the Parte gave to its donzelli. In the mid-fteenth
century, the donzelli of the Signoria received 12 orins for clothing each,44 while those of the
Parte received 22 orins.45

Pieros livery
As the statutes established, the liveries had to keep up with the current style. This suggests that there
was a certain uniformity of design that went somewhat beyond the boundaries of class and position.
It must be said, however, that the liveries primary role had little to do with style; rather, they fullled a political function and divided the wearers into conventional categories of recognisability.
43

The Camera del Comune and the Camerari della Parte were in charge respectively of the nance administration of the city of Florence and of the Parte Guelfa. ASF, MCCD, 2 (143048), fols. 64r, 102r-v, 103r-v,
105r, 106r-v, 107r-v, 108r; Ibid., 3 (143048), fols. 65r, 67r, 68r-v, 93r, 104v.; CPG, Numeri Rossi, 4, fols.
70r-v; MCCD, Uscita di Camera Generale, 3, fols. 63r, 66r, 67v, 69r-v.
44
ASF, Provvisioni Registri (henceforward PR), 133, fol. 128r. In 1442 the total wages paid to the Signorias
familia amounted to 5160 gold orins. Further, 1400 orins, a 27% addition to the salary, was disbursed for
the livery of its many employees. Descriptions of these ofces can be found in Guidobaldo Guidi, II governo
della citt-repubblica di Firenze del primo quattrocento (Florence: Olschki, 1981), 2, 389; ASF, DSCOA,
97, fols. 124v-125r. Here there is a complete roster of the familia for the year 1495.
45
Ordinary knights received no more than 16 orins altogether for their clothesASF, MCCD, 2 (143048),
fols. 64r, 102r-v, 103r-v, 105r, 106r-v, 107r-v, 108r; Ibid., 3 (143048), fols. 65r, 67r, 68r-v, 93r, 104v; CPG,
Numeri Rossi, 4, fols. 70r-v; MCCD, Uscita di Camera Generale, 3, fols. 63r, 66r, 67v, 69r-v; and Statuta
populi et communis Florentiae collecta, II, 514. The only exception was a knight of the court (miles curialis),
syndic, and referendary of the Commune of Florence, who in addition to his salary of 10 lire per month, was
to receive a robe worth 25 orins every six months from the podest of the city of Florence.

History of Retailing and Consumption

Table 2.

55

Clothes bought by Piero for his livery (14441463).

Date
22 June 1444
24 December
1452
5 June 1453
3 July 1453
27 June 1454
1 June 1459
22 June 1459

Price in lire
and soldi

Occasionb

5
1 6s

SJ
C

0 9s

SJ

10
14 6s

SJ
SJ

green

2 19s
2 4s

P
SJ

green

14 5s

SJ

light
blue

2 4s

Craftsmana

Item of clothing

Colour

Barberino
Giovanni dAntonio

1 velvet doublet
1 cloak

black
deep
blue

Sassolino dArrigo
Sassolini
Terozzo di Nerozzo
Maso Ricucci

1 pair of cloth gloves

23 June 1463

Simone di Dino
Antonio di maestro
Benedetto
Antonio di Giovanni

24 December
1463

Antonio di maestro
Benedetto

1 pair of suede gloves

haunches of vair for a
cloakc
several pairs of gloves
1 luccod
haunches and llets of
ormesino for a lucco
1 fustian lucco

red

Source: AOIF, 12618, fols. 21v, 26v, 28r, 33v, 64v, 77v, 84v, 88r. The monetary value is given in lire.
Notes:
(a) Most of the craftsmen who worked on Pieros clothing were tailors (sarti), like Barberino, Giovanni dAntonio, Terozzo
di Nerozzo, Antonio di maestro Benedetto and Antonio di Giovanni, but also furriers (vaiai) like Maso Ricucci, and some
doublet-makers (farsettai) like Simone di Dino.
(b) SJ = Saint John the Baptist (per San Giovanni); P = Popes arrival (per la venuta del Papa); C = Christmas (per
Natale).
(c) A lining of squirrel haunch fur was the cheapest squirrel fur.
(d) For the lucco, Benedetto Varchi, Storia Fiorentina, con aggiunte e correzioni, ed. Lelio Arbib (Florence: Soc. Ed.
Opere di Nardi e Varchi, 18381841), II, Libro IX (1529), 113. The Florentine lucco did not have sleeves, but lateral
slits for the passage of arms. Carlo Merkel, I beni della famiglia di Puccio Pucci. Inventario del sec. XV illustrato
(Trento: Miscellanea Nuziale Rossi-Theiis, 1897), 42. Lucchi appear regularly on the inventories of the family of
Puccio Pucci.

The choice of light and deep blue (azzurro) and green (verde) was predominant (as shown in
Tables 2 and 3). Blue was in fact one of the distinctive colours of the Parte, as it represented the
union with the house of Anjou.46 Similarly, green was another important colour for Florence (the
Parte identied itself with the city).47 However, accessories (hose, hats, gloves, sleeves) were
often comprised of different shades of red such as carmine, or pagonazzo,48 or even pink (see
Tables 2 and 3).
However, the materials used in these garments differed substantially: high quality and likely
precious embellishments for the captains; mostly wool and cheap, durable cloth for the servants.
This is reected in the prevalence among Pieros records of good but rough fabrics, such as the
fustian generally used to make modest clothing and the simple grey cloth (panno bigio) most
often employed for cheap dresses or for childrens petticoats. Some cases, however, testify to purchases of far more costly materials in order to make Pieros livery, including boccaccino (a ne
cloth of cotton or linen) and the woollen cloth of San Martino, an expensive textile woven from

46
On blue and light blue, see Salvatore Tramontana, Vestirsi e travestirsi in Sicilia: abbigliamento, feste e
spettacoli nel Medioevo (Palermo: Sellerio, 1993), 10810.
47
Bridgeman, Aspects of Dress and Ceremony, 142. Bridgeman argued that the soldiers of the Signoria
may have worn green liveries.
48
Collier Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence, 314. Pagonazzo or paonazzo is a peacock colour, a deep
rich blue-violet hue, which was very popular for both genders in the Quattrocento.

56

Item No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

A. Meneghin

Table 3.

Clothes sold or pawned by Piero (14441463).

Item

Lining

Trimmings

Colour

Value in lire and soldia

1 fustian cioppa b
1 cloak
1 lucco
1 fustian cioppa
1 cioppac
1 cioppa
1 cioppa
2 berrettini di sciamitoe
1 luccog
1 lucco
1 berretta
1 pair of new calze
1 fustian cioppa
1 silk cappuccioh
1 pair of calzej
1 pair of calze
1 fustian cioppa
1 cioppa of San Martino
1 lucco
1 fustian giubbarellok

haunches/heads of vair

ormesino

grey cloth
red boccaccinod cloth

backs of vair

green
light blue
green
deep blue
green/red
green
deep blue
granaf
green/paonazzo/black
green

32
8
10
34
20
6
6
1
10

paonazzo/black cloth

unbleached fustiani

lamb
fustian
grey cloth

otter

otter
ormesino

green
pagonazzo
grana
grana
deep blue
green

3
10
3
1 10s
7
24
5 25s

deep blue
(Continued )

Table 3.
Item No.
21
22
23

Continued.
Item
1 pair of calze
28 silver buttonsl
1 fustian lucco

Lining

Trimmings

Colour

Value in lire and soldia

green

green

20

History of Retailing and Consumption

Source: AOIF, 12617, fol. 33v; 12618, fols. 3v, 6v, 18v, 24v, 26r-v, 27v, 28v, 44r, 47v, 55v, 56v, 58v, 59v
Notes:
(a) The values of the data n. 1, 4, 5, 18, 23 (32, 34, 20, 24, 20) are given by the sale price of individual items of clothing. All other data are estimates derived from the amounts
obtained by Piero by pledging the garments, and therefore underestimate the real value, at times consistently.
(b) Con manicottoli di drappo rosso = with sleeves of red cloth.
(c) Una cioppa verde foderata di bochacino (sic) rosso. For the kind of red dye no other indication is given by Piero. Lisa Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters: Silk Fabrics in
Italian and Northern Paintings, 13001550 (New Haven, and London: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 301.
(d) The boccaccino or boccasino was a robust cotton fabric.
(e) Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters, Appendix I, 2978. Silk headgear, literally skullcaps of red samite. Samite was a silk twill weave.
(f) John H. Munro, The Medieval Scarlet and the Economics of Sartorial Splendour, in Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe: Essays in Memory of Professor Eleanora Mary CarusWilson, ed. Negley B. Harte and Kenneth G. Ponting (London: Heinemann, 1983), 1370. The carmine red obtained by grana was inferior in cost to the chermisi or chermes that was the
highest quality and most intense dyestuff for red silk. Dominique Cardon, Natural Dyes: Sources, Tradition, Technology & Science, trans. Caroline Higgitt (London: Archetype Books,
2007); and Lisa Monnas, Some Medieval Colour Terms for Textiles, Medieval Clothing & Textiles 10 (2014): 2557, 46.
(g) Un lucco di panno verde, doppiato di paghonazzo (sic) e nero.
(h) On the cappuccio, Baldesar Castiglione, Il Libro del Cortegiano, ed. Walter Barberis (Turin: Einaudi, 1998), Libro II, XXVII, 159. Rolled hood (chaperon in England and France). The
cappuccio was considered typically Florentine, as noted in Castigliones Cortegiano in 1516; Benedetto Varchi, Storia Fiorentina, 1145; and Jane Bridgeman, Aspects of Dress and
Ceremony in Quattrocento Florence (PhD diss., Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 1986), 958.
(i) con manicottoli di drappo = with sleeves of cloth.
(j) con peduli = with rope-soled shoes.
(k) Doublet, con manichini rosati = with little pink sleeves.
(l) Although these were sold, no value was ascribed to them.

57

58

A. Meneghin

the best quality English wool.49 The use of canvas, cotton, linen and wool in turn suggests that a
custom existed of using lighter or heavier fabrics for the liveries depending on the season in which
they were worn.
It seems that the clothes of both categories were made by the same tailor. This might be a result
of the need for specic skills, styles and patterns involved in making these clothes, which were
within the remit of specialised tailors. This is also reected in Pieros attitude, as he commissioned
work mainly from a certain Giovanni dAntonio, nicknamed Tesoro (Treasure), who was apparently the tailor of almost all of the Partes members. When he died, his two sons, Antonio and
Vittorio, succeeded him in his role and once again Piero primarily utilised them to make his
livery. However, he also made occasional use of other tailors, including Piero di Domenico, Girolamo di Stefano, Antonio di Jacopo, Antonio Miche (nicknamed Barberino), and especially Giovanni di Cecco da Montelupo, who, in addition to cutting and sewing clothes was also a donzello
of the Parte, like Piero.50 The fact that the captains and the donzelli resorted to the same tailor also
suggests that the cost of manufacture was the same for both groups. This is another indicator of
how much importance was attached to the livery as a vehicle for communicating the prestige of the
Parte. Further proof of this can be seen in the other works that were entrusted to the same craftsmen. With regard to shoes, for example, we have data conrming that both the high authorities of
the Parte and the donzelli made their purchases from the same shoemakers. Indeed, Piero was
served by the same Simone, Guglielmo and Leonardo who made shoes and boots for the captains,
and similarly used the same hosiers (calzaioli). On 18 November 1457, for example, Piero paid the
sum of 2 lire 2 soldi for a pair of slippers and a pair of calcagnini (clogs that were worn over the
slippers/shoes to protect them against the dirt in the streets) to Simone di Morello (il Morellino), a
shoemaker who regularly supplied the captains as well.51 Guglielmo, the calzaiolo, and his
brother Leonardo worked for other ofcers of the Parte, in particular Salvestro Spini treasurer
in November 1457 and his family. The two brothers rented a shop from the Parte, probably
located in the maze of streets around the old market. Piero visited their shop on more than one
occasion from November to May 1457 to buy various things, including: a pair of soled hose
made of red perpignano (a generally expensive woollen jersey cloth used to make calze),
valued at 4 lire;52 another pair of expensive red hose with peduli (rustic rope-soled shoes) for 3
lire; and two pairs of much cheaper white calcetti (12 soldi).53 The shoes of the Signori and
the captains (who were almost always on horseback) lasted much longer than those of the servants,
which had to be refurbished, along with calcetti, almost annually. The records of Piero often
contain accounts with the shoemakers or hosiers to whom he would mostly resort for resoling
shoes, probably worn out by lots of walking. To Andrea di Papi Macchietto, for example, he

49

John Munro, I panni di lana, in Il Rinascimento Italiano e lEuropa, Commercio e cultura mercantile, IV,
ed. Franco Franceschi, Richard A. Goldthwaite, and Reinhold C. Mueller (Treviso: Angelo Colla Editore,
2007), 10541, 1225. The panni di San Martino earned their name from the tenth-century convent of
San Martino del Vescovo in Florence, where they were manufactured.
50
ASF, Catasto, 64 (1427), 65 (1427), 80 (1457), 795 (1457), fols. 357, 276, 383, 264. All tailors mentioned
lived and worked in Oltrarno, the city district with the highest concentration of tailors in the fteenth century,
with the exception of Girolamo di Stefano, who lived in the neighborhood of San Giovanni. See also Nicholas A. Eckstein, The District of the Green Dragon: Neighbourhood Life and Social Change in Renaissance
Florence (Florence: Olschki, 1995), 1940.
51
AOIF, 12618, fol. 56v.
52
Levi Pisetzky, Storia del costume, II, 27. The hose were mostly solate, provided with a leather sole, so that
one would not have to wear shoes.
53
AOIF, 12618, fols. 54r, 56v. See also Levi Pisetzky, Storia del costume, II, 23. The calcetti, pieces that
were worn under the hose and covered only the foot, were often made of simple fabric but could also be
made of linen thread.

History of Retailing and Consumption

59

paid 1 lira for the soling of two pairs of hose between 29 April and 8 July 1458.54 Another entry
records 1 lira 18 soldi disbursed for the soling of two pairs of boots, for which he gave precise
indications (they have to be made like those of the captains), while an extra 2 lire 2 soldi
went to make sure that another new pair of boots without soles would look exactly like those
of the captains. This indiscriminate employment of the artisans who worked on the clothes
and shoes of both the Signori and captains and those of domestic staff is documented elsewhere.
The customers of some shoemakers at Galeazzo Maria Sforzas court, for example, included not
only members of the dukes intimate circles but also a soldier and a member of the kitchen staff.55
In Florence, more conspicuous displays were possible during the festive spring season, which
began with May Day and culminated with the feast of St. John the Baptist on 24 June. Most of the
expenses for Pieros clothes occurred near the time of the feast of St. John (an event that coincided
with one of the two annual distributions of clothes, as mentioned above). Payments made to the
tailors Barberino, Terozzo di Nerozzo and Antonio di maestro Benedetto are all for substantial
amounts, and invariably fall just before (22 June), the same day (24 June) or soon after (27
June) the feast of San Giovanni.56
Although it is true that Piero left no inventory, which makes it difcult to distinguish the clothing in his livery from that which he wore when he was not in service, data from the Memoriale
have made it possible to reconstruct some of the elements of his livery. Indeed, he registered
alongside payments to various craftsmen for the latter work on his clothes and accessories
the fact that they belonged to his livery, giving the destination of the purchases as well as the
occasion for their use (see Table 2). However, he also entered a list of the clothes of the Parte
for me that he pawned, exchanged or sold on a number of occasions, as mentioned above,
and in particular during the 1450s (see Table 3).
Tables 2 and 3 also make clear the regular presence of furs in Pieros livery, such as squirrel
and otter (lontra). While the highly valued vair57 was only employed to line fully one of Pieros
overgowns (and even then it was with the cheaper fur of the heads and haunches rather than with
the expensive, soft bellies), other furs were used to trim the edges of his garments.58
Another item of note in his livery was the doublet ( farsetto), not a particularly valuable
garment per se, but made of black velvet in this case. The silk fabrics placed under the
name of velvets (velluti) composed a very heterogeneous group in this period and the price
differences for different types were marked.59 It will sufce to say that if velluti were plain,
they were much cheaper than those a due peli or a tre peli di altezze addobbate (that is, velvet
with either two or three pile warps per dent of the reed);60 if they were also dyed crimson red,
they could reach astronomical gures.61 A plain crimson velvet cost 3 to 7 orins per

54

AOIF, 12618, fol. 60v.

Lubkin, A Renaissance Court, 128.
56
AOIF, 12618, fols. 21v, 26v, 28r, 33v, 64v, 77v, 84v, 88r.
57
Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, ed. Allan Evans (Cambridge, MA: The Medieval Academy of America, 1936), no. 24, 38, 436; and Collier Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence, 169,
Table 8.1, Pelts used for lining, borders and sleeves in fteenth century Florence. The costly grey fur of
the greater squirrel (originally imported from Siberia and Bulgaria) was called vair.
58
On fur, see Elspeth M. Veale, The English Fur Trade in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1966).
59
For (silk) velvet, see Lisa Monnas, Renaissance Velvets (London: V&A Publications, 2012).
60
Lisa Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters: Silk Fabrics in Italian and Northern Paintings, 1300
1550 (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 304.
61
Luca Mol, The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2000), 11220. On the price of colours, see Giovanni da Uzzano, La pratica della mercatura
(Bologna: Formia Editore, 1967, reprint), IV, LX, 170.
55

60

A. Meneghin

braccio,62 depending upon its quality, while a crimson velvet with gold thread cost 24 orins per
braccio.63 The farsetto purchased by Piero was probably made of lower-quality velvet, a plain
material, possibly devoid of decorative motifs and certainly not enriched with silver and gold
threads. In fact, if we consider the cost of manufacture, which is supposed to have been
high,64 the price Piero paid for the doublet a little more than 1 orin is a lower gure than
that documented for only a braccio of velvet, whose market price ranged between a minimum
of 1 orin 13 soldi 9 denari to a maximum of 1 orin 15 soldi expressed in orini di suggello,
a money of account.65 Almost certainly Piero purchased this farsetto second-hand.
Another of the elements appearing in the most rened wardrobes, but also as part of
Pieros livery that gave an immediate effect of elegance to an ensemble were gloves. In particular,
suede gloves were very popular, especially in the second half of the fteenth century, as were
those made of silk or cloth. Gloves from Milan were especially sought after.66 Some of Pieros
most conspicuous expenses appeared in relation to this accessory; he jotted down the purchase
of a pair of suede leather gloves at the cost of 10 lire in 1453, and then again in 1459. In that
year he recorded having bought on 1 June several pairs of gloves for the Popes arrival in Florence
(per la venuta del Papa a Firenze) at the cost of 2 lire 19 soldi from Simone di Dino, the doublet
maker.67 Benedetto Dei, an eyewitness to the events, described the substantial expenses that the
Signoria and the Parte had incurred to properly celebrate the arrival of the Pope and other illustrious
personalities, such as Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Sigismondo Malatesta, Lord of
Rimini.68
The 28 silver buttons that Piero purchased represent another element of great importance in
the hierarchy of clothing accessories.69 These were probably used to close the loops of one of
his garments, either a doublet (perhaps the velvet one), the deep blue giubbarello (doublet)
with pink sleeves made of fustian, or one of his various overgowns.70 Katherine Kovesi
Killerby has shown that, while magistrates and communal ofcers were exempted from strictly
following the rules,71 men accused of breaking the clothing laws were especially prosecuted
62

The Florentine braccio measured 0.583 metres.

Jane Bridgeman, Pagare le pompe: Why Quattrocento Sumtuary Laws Did Not Work, in Women in
Italian Renaissance, Culture and Society, ed. Letizia Panizza (Oxford: European Humanities Research
Centre, 2000), 20926, 217.
64
Florence Edler de Roover, Andrea Banchi, Florentine Silk Manufacturer and Merchant in the Fifteenth
Century, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 3 (1966): 22883, Table 4, 248; William Caferro,
The Silk Business of Tommaso Spinelli, Fifteenth-Century Florentine Merchant and Papal Banker, Renaissance Studies 10, no. 4 (1996): 41739, Table 1, 430; and Monica Cerri, Sarti toscani nel Seicento: attivit e
clientela, in Cavagna and Butazzi, Le trame della moda, 42135, 427. To make a doublet, which had to be
tted to the individual body and stuffed with cotton, required a lot of work.
65
Sergio Tognetti, Unindustria di lusso al servizio del grande commercio. Il mercato dei drappi serici e
della seta nella Firenze del Quattrocento (Florence: Olschki, 2002), 115. The estimates are calculated for
the period 14591470.
66
Rita Levi Pisetzky, Il costume e la moda nella societ italiana (Turin: Einaudi, 1978), 198; see also Evelyn
Welch, Scented Buttons and Perfumed Gloves: Smelling Things in Renaissance Italy, in Ornamentalism:
The Art of Renaissance Accessories, ed. Bella Mirabella (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011),
1339.
67
AOIF, 12618, fol. 77v.
68
Benedetto Dei, La cronica dellanno 1400 allanno 1500, ed. Roberto Barducci (Florence: Papafava,
1984), 66.
69
On buttons, see Dora L. Bemporad and Caterina Chiarelli, eds., Appesi a un lo. Bottoni alla Galleria del
Costume di Palazzo Pitti (Florence: Sillabe, 2007).
70
Bridgeman, Aspects of Dress and Ceremony, 139. Bridgeman argued that an additional requirement for
the emissaries of the Signoria was to wear silver buttons.
71
Kovesi Killerby, Sumptuary Law, 85.
63

History of Retailing and Consumption

61

for having silver or enamelled silver buttons on their own outts or on those of their daughters
and sons.72
The grana hose and the silk cappuccio, and the fur trimmings, coloured yarn and beads, as
well as the same gloves and the manicottoli made of coloured cloth, were almost certainly
parts of a non-ordinary livery; not to be worn every day, but only under special circumstances.
In fact, although silk hardly featured in any other garments and the range of decorative effects
was limited (except for the cases mentioned above), it would seem that it was common practice
to enrich the liveries with a few key elements before important public ceremonies or celebrations
rather than ordering new liveries, unless it was strictly necessary. In order to emphasise the clothes
of the donzelli, beads, trimmings or coloured yarn (refe) could be added to make the servants
immediately recognisable as such, just as the various members clothes displayed their differences
in status. Pieros purchase records contain a wealth of data to conrm this from various Florentine merciai (haberdashers) regarding purchases of coloured refe and cords of various
kinds and colours, possibly to decorate his livery.
Finally, the responsibility for the care of these clothes adds another interesting dimension. In
addition to giving the already mentioned bonus for the liveries, it also seems that the Parte compensated the donzelli when they incurred some expenses in order to keep their clothing neat.
When Piero turned to Giovanni dAntonio Tesoro for adjustment in 1451 (he made me a
lucco by converting a cloak: per acconciatura di un mantello mi ci fece un lucco), and to turn
a garment inside-out (per rivoltare da capo a pi un lucchetto verde) as it was probably worn
on one side, the Parte refunded him the 22 and 25 soldi he had spent.73 This benevolent attitude
took into account the labours of the servant and the consequent wear-and-tear on his clothes.

Conclusions
Analysing the rules and regulations regarding the dress of the household staff of the Parte Guelfa
offers important evidence as to the visual impact and the political signicance of the livery of
minor ofcers. As this study has illustrated, the livery was employed to publicise messages intimately linked to the power and honour of the Parte. The members of the Partes household wore
clothes that represented their social identity, guaranteeing an immediate recognition of their roles
as individuals as well as members of a group. Indeed, the liveries of the subordinates functioned
as prime indicators and direct reections of the power of the institution to which they belonged,
and the garments were conceived and perceived as a way to illustrate the Partes virtues and
liberality.
While the trimmings in ormesino of cioppe and lucchi, the silver buttons, the silk cappucci
and the suede gloves of a simple donzello were an obvious manifestation of the honour of the
Parte, the nancial advantage for the wearer must also be taken into account and must not be
underestimated. Clothes that were given to the donzelli for a limited period of time, only entrusted
to them for the duration of their service, became, in practice, their personal belongings which they
felt entitled to exchange, pawn and even sell, in essence committing embezzlement.
At times the records of Piero di Francesco indicate that the Parte paid artisans and tailors on
his behalf for the items listed. Nevertheless, this arrangement does not necessarily mean that the
Parte dictated his choices, despite what was prescribed in the statutes. In fact, it seems unlikely
that the Parte controlled its servants spending very closely or that the control was very strict. In
fact, it is common to nd records testifying to a different arrangement which seems to have
72
73

Ibid., 1545.
AOIF, 12619, fol. 6v.

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A. Meneghin

become the norm at some point: that is, Piero made his own purchases on credit from local retailers and had the transaction charged to the Partes account. This last method was advantageous to
him as the Parte was undoubtedly more creditworthy and its credit innitely more extensive than
that of its servants. It must be said that, if the Parte allowed its servants a certain latitude in their
handling of clothing, this was hardly unique. It remains possible that the Parte expected its servants to maintain sartorial standards that were both more elevated and more constrained than
those demanded by the social class to which they belonged. In enforcing these standards, the
Parte may have been more generous with gifts of clothing. The more stylish items may not
necessarily have been as ne as those owned by the captains, but they certainly included, at
least as accessories, the furs and velvets complained about in fteenth-century sumptuary legislation. Piero, who seems to have combined the costly and stylish with the cheap and mundane,
took full advantage of his lucky circumstances.
Ultimately, if the livery was conceived of as a means of constraining the extravagance of the
servants dress, while serving as a reection of the Parte Guelfa, the lax behaviour of the ofcers
whose responsibilities included checking on regulations on clothes, but who neglected to do so,
effectively allowed some of the donzelli to deceitfully use the clothing given to them. Probably
not all servants chose to employ their clothing allowance in the way Piero did, but the fact
remains that, if the precise laws aimed at prohibiting the misuse of clothing written in the statutes
were enacted, they probably only reected formalities rather than strict regulations.
Acknowledgement
This study is largely based upon collections in the Archive of the Hospital of the Innocenti (AOIF) and in the
State Archive in Florence (ASF).

Disclaimer
No potential conict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Alessia Meneghin is Research Associate in Italian Renaissance Studies at the University of Cambridge. In
2011 she was the recipient of the Society for Renaissance Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2011 and 2012
she worked on the ARC-funded project, The Anatomy and Physiology of Renaissance Florence: The
Dynamics of Social Change in the Fifteenth Century, led by Nicholas Eckstein of the University of
Sydney. Her published work focuses on issues of life-standards, consumption and the social mobility of
the lower social orders in Renaissance Florence. She has published in Archivio Storico Italiano and has forthcoming work in Quaderni Storici and in the volume Retail Trade, Supply and Demand in the Formal and
Informal Economy from the 13th to the 18th Centuries, published by Firenze University Press, for the Istituto
Internazionale di Storia Economica F. Datini.