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Fashion And Court-Building In The Sixteenth-Century Florentine Ducal Court: Politics, Agency, And Paleopathology In The Wardrobes Of Eleonora Di Toledo And Giovanna D'Austria, Leah Rachel Jeffers

Scripps Senior Theses

Fashion in the Renaissance became intensely political, highly gendered, and anatomized (i.e. emphasizing human anatomy rather than masking it). Court culture placed a particular emphasis on the body of the courtier, as skills such as dancing and dressing fashionably became crucial to political success in states throughout Europe. In sixteenth-century Florence, the Medici attempted to install a duchy in what was at the time a republican city (with strong republican heritage). Florentine fears of foreign domination and resentment towards non-republican forms of government made the Medici’s task nearly impossible. Fashion became a primary pillar of the Medicean political agenda, as …