BA Art History and History / Course details

This course unit investigates the visual culture of clothing and adornment in Renaissance Italy. The study of dress has been described as ‘hybrid’, involving interrogation of the artefact, textiles, pictorial representation, social and economic sources, and philological sources. (Daniel Roche). Scholars and practitioners have also explored dress through processes of ‘making, remaking, and reconstructing’ (Hilary Davidson). Using visual and written sources, as well a practical experimentation, we will consider topics including the rise of ‘fashion’, religious clothing, secular clothing, jewellery, legislation regarding dress and adornment, clothing and morality, and dress and nationality in order to understand the importance of dress and adornment in the Renaissance.

This course unit aims to provide a framework for understanding dress and adornment within a specific cultural context through detailed examination and discussion of visual, material, and written evidence. 

The course unit encourages:  

• A critical examination of the different sources for the understanding of dress history 
• The development of a framework for thinking about dress history as a ‘hybrid’ subject  
• Engagement with visual material as a primary source 
• Engagement with other types of primary sources, including texts and artefacts 
• Development of understanding of different types of fibre, weaving and fabric 
• Practice-based research on weaving and sewing techniques 
• An understanding of the relationship of changing understandings of clothing to cultural context.

This course unit will enable students to gain and improve a number of skills including:

• Time management and being able to work to deadlines 
• Working in a team and leading and participating in discussion 
• Presenting information to an audience and being able to field questions 
• Presenting assessed material in a professional format 
• Working, with guidance, on research including finding suitable material for assessments and being able evaluate this material 
• Reflection on discussions and assignments enabling future improvement.

Topics covered in the course unit may include:  

1. Theories of fashion and consumption 

2. The vocabulary of dress 

3. Textiles 

4. Stitching and embroidery

5. Religious vestments 

6.  Habits of the religious orders 

7. Costume books 

8. Portraits and Sumptuary legislation 

9. Accessories 

10. Male court clothing 

11. Dress and Comportment

This is a seminar-based course unit: 

4 seminar hours per week:  

• 2 hours per week will be dedicated to class discussion using weekly set questions, readings, and images. 

Seminars will consist of mini-lectures, group and individual activities and discussions.

•  2 hours per week will be dedicated to practical experience and discussion of appropriate historical techniques, based on a variety of research strategies.

• Identify, and comment knowledgably on, different sources for the study of dress history. 
• Explain key issues in the study of art in the study of dress and adornment in Renaissance Italy. 
• Demonstrate the ability to locate, select, organise, interpret, evaluate and present material appropriate to the course.

• Analyse material (texts, art, clothing) covered in the course unit. 
• Articulate intellectual arguments orally and in writing. 
• Critically evaluate secondary source material.

• Produce detailed visual analyses. 
• Carry out selected basic practical textile skills. 
• Carry out supervised research in order to meet assessment requirements.

• Participate confidently and appropriately in group discussions.
• Manage time effectively. 
• Respond positively to constructive feedback.

Formative - Individual meeting. 

Summative - Written feedback with opportunity for individual meeting.

Ulinka Rublack, Dressing Up: Cultural identity in Renaissance Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), (‘Introduction’, pp.  1-32.)

Lous Taylor, The Study of Dress History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), (‘Approaches using visual analysis: paintings, drawings and cartoons’, pp. 115-149.)

Janet Arnold, Patterns of Fashion: The cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women c. 1560-1620  (London: Macmillan, 1985).

Lisa Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters: Silk Fabrics in Italian and Northern Paintings, 1300-1550, New Haven, 2008.

Hilary Davidson, ‘The embodied turn: Making and remaking dress as an academic practice’, in Fashion Theory 23:3 (2019), pp. 329-362.

Currie, Elizabeth, ‘Prescribing fashion: dress, politics, and gender in sixteenth-century Italian conduct literature’, in Fashion Theory 4 (2000), pp. 157-177

Diane Owen Hughes, ‘Distinguishing signs: ear-rings, Jews and Franciscan rhetoric in the Italian Renaissance city’, in Past and Present 112 (1986), pp. 3-59.

Timothy McCall, ‘Brilliant Bodies: Material Culture and the Adornment of Men in North Italy’s Quattrocento Courts’, in I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 16/1 (2013), pp. 445–90.