Habiti delle Donne Venetiane (Dress of Venetian Women)
Giacomo Franco Italian
Publisher Giacomo Franco Italian
Not on view
This book consists of twenty numbered plates of ornately dressed women engraved by Giacomo Franco, each accompanied by a description in Latin and Italian. The work serves as a compendium of Venetian beauties, in which courtesans and respectable women are represented interchangeably, a juxtaposition that may explain why Franco never received a printing privilege for the book. Two plates describe aspects of Venetian wedding ceremonies. In plate 7, Franco depicts the parentado, or the ritual presentation of a bride to her relations. Here, a bride in a richly embroidered dress wearing pearls and a bejeweled crown is presented by her ballerino, a dance instructor who prevented the woman from toppling over in her chopines, or platform shoes. A following engraving illustrates the custom by which a bride would travel by gondola to visit her relatives in convents, a very public display that made the entire city seem a witness to the marriage.
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