Fashioning Family Honour in Renaissance Florence: The Language of Women's Clothing and Gesture in the Frescoes in the Oratory of the Confraternity of the Buonomini di San Martino in Florence

Abstract

The concept of family honor in Quattrocento Florence has traditionally been associated with the ruling classes. Young, nubile females, dressed in the best garments that money could buy, pious, veiled matrons and cittadini resplendent in their red robes provided visual examples of a virtuous model of social perfection. This article though, through new readings of the artistic texts found in the Oratorio dei Buonomini di San Martino, Florence, will illustrate how females from the middle and artisan classes played an equally important role in communicating these ideals.