Florentine Gown from 1550

By: Catherine Griffith (SCA: Baroness Catherine Grace Fitzlewis QC)

Eleonora of Toledo with her son Giovanni de' Medici
Agnolo Bronzino, 1550:Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

My goal for this dress was to fairly closely replicate the details in the Eleonora of Toledo dress seen in this portrait, with a few alterations based on the taste and material restrictions. I am slightly lowering the neckline, which in the portrait is higher than many previously seen Florentine dress portraits--the higher neckline was probably due to the Spanish influence Eleonora's background inevitably had on her at this time. The reason I am doing this is because I feel that the scale of my fabric print is better suited to a lower neckline (otherwise, another lozenge shape would begin to infringe on the central design). I am comfortable lowering it without jeopardizing the integrity of the dress as it still falls well within the norm for this time period—even if not seen on this particular dress. When I found the fabric for this dress I have to admit to a happy dance, and it screamed Italian to me. I had the fabric for about a year before finally deciding what to do with it.

The similarity to the fabric pattern in Eleonora’s dress is remarkable, Since 1857, the fabric as shown in the painting was thought to be the burial clothes uncovered from her grave in San Lorenzo, Florence. In fact, they used the dress in this portrait to identify the body, as it was unmarked. However, in 1986, Janet Arnold revealed and proved that the fabric Eleonora was buried in was actually a ground of charmeuse green satin silk (now faded pale yellow) with black embroidered bands; not an all-over pattern of cut and uncut velvet. I am not sure how exactly the mistake was made in the fist place, as I feel that the two fabrics are markedly different from one another. In fact, I am not exactly sure how the experts now know that the San Lorenzo body is Eleonora, as they now have no portrait to match her to.

Extant burial dress of Eleonora
Pictures from Moda a Firenze 1540-1580 by Bruna Niccoli & Roberta Orsi Landini

Full scale drawings of the burial dress can be found in Janet Arnold’s book Patterns of Fashion on p.102. Even though I know that this is not the same dress, I used many of the details to help me construct the pattern of my dress.

The fabric is something that has been debated for a very long time, to the point of arguing if it even existed, or was a flight of fancy by the painter. In my opinion, it was a loomed white silk, with black and gold velvet much like the one shown below. It is described as white silk ground with Silver weft floats, cut black velvet with uncut looped colored velvet, voided.

Italian fabric swatch:
Civic Museum of Turin

The striking fabric that draws most people into Eleonora’s painting is not quite as unique as it was once thought. With the advent of the internet, we are now able to compare fabrics from all across Europe, more easily, and discover that the yellow black and white coloration mixed with a pomegranate pattern was quite popular in Spain, Italy and throughout Europe for both ecclesiastical and civilian purposes. The pomegranate design was thought to symbolize fertility.

Spanish Chasuble back
Fabric Textile Museum: Lyon

Isabel of Austria: 1573
Monastery of the Descalzas Reales

The fabric I have chosen to use for my dress is black and gold silk damask that has a pattern very close to the original (only without the cut / uncut velvet or the white).

The Dress

I started with the sleeves on this dress. I sewed the entire outer sleeve by hand using a 2 piece bent arm sleeve pattern that I had drafted for an earlier dress, and simply split it into 4 pieces by dividing each piece down the middle. I lined them up on the silk in as even a manner as possible and cut them without a seam allowance. I added 3 inch strips of hand gathered linen to the pieces, and bound all of my edges in black velvet ribbon. I used black silk thread for all of my stitching on this dress. I then measured out 9 points to hand-gather and stitch for the edges and buttons. This dress was my first attempt at any kind of sleeve paning. I used linen strips to puff through, which was a common practice in period, as opposed to attempting to push my camicia through, which I doubt would have ever been attempted sanely with this dress (at least not with children hanging off you all day).

I machine sewed the lining into the sleeve adding the silk tie points at the same time. The sleeves have a slight ripple to them that could have been solved by adding a layer of heavy canvas, but I really didn’t want to stiffen up the sleeves, and if one looks at the original portrait of Eleonora, one can see a certain amount of rippling in her sleeves too.

I then drafted the bodice with side back seams as seen in this portrait of the time and in Janet Arnold’s patterns of fashion examination of the burial gown. I also placed the shoulder seams slightly offset towards the back.

I centered the main medallion shape on the bodice front and back and sewed the lining in, I edged the neck with the black velvet and added the shoulder puffs, and I took the measurement of the top sleeve panes, added enough for a pleat in the center of each shoulder piece and bound the edges in the black velvet. My shoulder caps are intentionally slightly less full then the original portrait, but they are still in keeping with the style I was going for. In total, between the sleeves and shoulder caps, there are 80 buttons on this dress. I dropped the back of the dress a little lower then the burial dress version to match other dresses from this country and period and to keep in reference of dropping the front lower. I hand bound the eyelets in black silk thread using a leather awl to make the holes; I also staggered the eyelets so I could spiral lace the dress.

The lacing cord is black silk that I luceted while flying to visit my sister in Denver. I know that I am mixing mediums with the luceting on this 16th century Italian dress, but it looks good, and has just a bit of give to it that I like for the purpose of bending over and stretching, while having enough strength and body to hold the dress well.

The skirt is 4, 60” wide panels; I used straight panels because I like the fullness at the top for the cartridge pleats as well as not wanting to interrupt the design on the skirt with gores. I know that in period, the miss matched pattern would not have bothered anyone, but the seamstress in me doesn’t like to gore if I have the fabric to get away without doing it. I also realize that I have a little more fullness then I probably need for period, but I love my princess skirts. I lined up the pattern in each of the panels, and in order to do this I found that the dress was going to be about 2 inches shorter then I like to wear my skirts unless I wasted a good couple of yards in cutting off the repeat, I feel bad enough doing that with paper when I wall paper, I certainly was not going to justify it here in this situation, so instead I added a cotton velvet guard at the bottom.

I put strips of wool flannel into the top waist seam for the skirt, because I find that it adds to the fullness of my pleats and makes the skirt stand out nicely. I attached the skirt by hand to a waistband of silk first, and then hand sewed it to the bodice.

I have added the hook parts, of hook and eyes to the neck of the dress to catch the partlet and hold it in place when worn. I cannot say for sure that this was a “done” thing, but I don’t want it shifting while being worn and I didn’t want to pin it.

All in all I would say that about 70% of this dress was hand sewn—I used a machine for only the long seams. I am often asked why I use a machine for much of my sewing, I am even deducted points for it in most SCA competitions; I personally do not claim to be anymore busy then anyone else, but my dresses have to withstand my 2 children and a modern lifestyle. I deeply respect those that do hand sew their entire outfits, and know that they can be as strong as machine sewn things, it’s just that unlike a medieval lady, I have no nanny so that I may serenely walk around contemplating the meaning of life, and as such must be able to be hung off of, eaten next to, help with car loading in a pinch, and once a dress is finished, I rarely am able to go back for repairs. If my dress were to be turned inside out, no machine stitching would be visible either, so unless someone wants to pick apart my lining……….anyway I digress.

Photos of my dress taken at National Cathedral in Washinton, DC

The Partlet

A partlet would have served a few purposes in a 16th century Italian ladies wardrobe, not the least of which would be, modesty, adornment, variety and a display of wealth. The partlet I have chosen to make for this dress is a sort of combination of two partlets from period, both of which were owned by Eleonora of Toledo. I wanted to stay fairly true to the shape of the partlet worn in the painting of Eleonora with her son, but I really liked the black detail in an earlier painting of Eleonora by Agnolo Bronzino.

I started off by making a net design on my dress form by basket weaving the gold trim and pinning it in place. The gold trim is in a 1/8 inch figure eight design, giving a natural spacing for my stitches. I used the black silk thread to do a running stitch along the length of all the vertical strands, catching all the cross pieces in the process. I then reversed this and went in the other direction, essentially filling in the dotted lines. I now had something stable enough to take off the dress form and could repeat the process on the horizontal strands.

Since we cannot see what the original partlet edges look like (because they are covered by the dress), and I have found no extant examples, I decided to make what for me was a fairly logical leap and use some white silk bias tape to finish all the outer edges and add the ribbon ties with aglet tips. I feel like this stabilizes the arms and gives a little natural stretch that will not make this piece binding when worn.

I used a cream silk thread to sew on the pearls, in order to match the ivory color of the pearls as best as I could. I used the black threads on the wrong side of the partlet to wrap the cream silk threads around, in order to keep the back tidy. I added a second row of gold trim to stabilize and pretty up the neck in a sort of sandwich, with the middle being all of my ends sewn down.

I then pearled the neck with an even distribution of my remaining pearls. This piece was entirely hand sewn and took me quite some time, but I feel it captures a lot of the elements of the original. Additionally, it has a weight that although in the grand scheme of things is not substantial, feels a little heavy for its size and is fairly strong.

To complete this dress, I added a girdle made of brass plated chain with gold plated buttons as a detail, with enameling in the centers. I made a pearl tassel out of 2mm freshwater pearls; I also used a few jewelry findings.

I added an Italian camicia that I already owned, although I would eventually like to replace it with one that has blackwork, the one I am using is from my middleclass 16th century Italian dress. I am often asked how much time or money goes into one of my dresses, and I am afraid that I don’t have a great answer that suits everyone—because I was able to find most of the materials on great sales, raw materials cost approximately $275, but this doesn’t include the cost of about 6 months of part-time research and well over 100 hours of construction time that also went into this gown.