Shoes, Gowns and Turncoats: Reconsidering Cacciaguida’s History of Florentine Fashion and Politics

Abstract

Shoes, Gowns and TurncoatsReconsidering Cacciaguida’s History of Florentine Fashion and Politics Kristina Olson Scholarship has traditionally taken for granted that the Italian historiographical tradition is rhetorically based upon the virtues and vices of women, and a similar assumption has occasionally been made for the Commedia as well, though that totalizing vision has been challenged recently.1 When considered in the contexts of material consumption, Dante’s history of Florence is based upon the vices of both men and women, one that exists in dialogue with the governance of dress and ornamentation of the body, as scholars have noted.2 Two seminal moments in the Commedia speak to these political and social realities by lamenting the moral decadence of Florence, comparing past and present sumptuary mores: Forese Donati’s invective against the “sfacciate donne fiorentine” (Purg. 23.97–102), and, under examination here, Cacciaguida’s nostalgia for the prelapsarian age of Florence, which, among other social markers of integrity, did not have excessive ornamentation or luxurious clothing (Par. 15.100–117). The focus in Forese’s invective on the immodest dress of women expands to target both male and female dress in Cacciaguida’s description of the modest ways of Florentines who dwelled in the “cerchia antica.”3 Likewise, Cacciaguida’s reminiscence, which describes fashion trends on behalf of both sexes, should be interpreted within the political contexts from which they originate, as well as in terms of the history of its reception in the commentary tradition, as I argue in these pages. When read against the distortions of the commentary tradition of the Commedia and the [End Page 26] chronicles, and then contextualized within fashion history and select sumptuary statutes, Cacciaguida’s history of Florence can be perceived to inculpate both men and women as the protagonists in the performance of new wealth. The inextricable relationship between Dante’s history of fashion and his political vision differentiates the Commedia from the moralizing, misogynistic tradition of these other narratives. I. Im/material Girls: “Donne contigiate,” the Commentary Tradition and Villani’s Cronica The historical origins of Florence in the Commedia begin in the mid-twelfth century as the sober and chaste city described by Cacciaguida where women and men dressed simply and maintained domestic peace (Par. 15.97–129). These “mothers and fathers of Florence” evoke, as Barolini notes, those beloved parents whose absence is felt in the preceding canto: “forse non pur per lor, ma per le mamme, / per li padri e per li altri che fuor cari / anzi che fosser sempiterne fiamme” (Par. 14.64–66).4 Dante’s great-great-grandfather is anticipated by this nostalgia for the material existence of one’s progenitors, for the body as well as for that which dresses the body. In Paradiso 14, clothing serves as a metaphor for the insistent materiality which bridges this life to the next: from the “vesta” (39) radiated by love around the souls of the blessed to the “clothing” of the flesh: “Come la carne glorïosa e santa / fia rivestita, la nostra persona / più grata fia per esser tutta quanta” (Par. 14.43–5, emphasis added). It is this textual turn to the body and its adornment in Paradiso that leads as well to the exclamation of the pilgrim upon observing the souls that adorn the cross: “‘O Eliòs che sì li addobbi!’” (96, emphasis added). Dress forms an essential part of Dante’s lexicon that is at once other-worldly and bound up in the things of this world. If clothing served only as a reference to the things of this world for Dante, then he might have emphasized this notable aspect of St. Francis’s revocation of his father’s wealth a few cantos earlier, for example (Par. 11.56–62).5 Instead, as the reader begins Paradiso 15 proper, she is reminded of the spiritual value of clothing even when discussing the refusal of the material. In this case, he who “undresses” himself (“si spoglia”) of the love that breathes upwards towards the eternal, should suffer: “Bene è che sanza termine si [End Page 27] doglia / chi, per amor di cosa che non duri / etternalmente, quello amor si spoglia” (Par...