Uncovering the Historical Body of Florence: Dante, Forese Donati, and Sumptuary Legislation

Abstract

This paper considers the historical antecedent of Cardinal Latino’s specific interdiction against women’s clothing that exhibited frontal exposure as evoked by Forese Donati in Purgatorio 23, situating this interdiction within the history of sumptuary counsel and legislation. This gendered aspect of Dante’s history of Florence is informed by the political discourse of sumptuary excess amongst Florentine elite families and the tensions amongst such families, both those which had true claims to nobility (such as the Donati), and the upwardly mobile mercantile elite (such as the Cerchi). Dante’s choice of Forese Donati as the speaker of this invective carries implications for Dante’s political thought, as it reflects the concerns of the popolo more than those of elite families. This essay relates the intersection of political critique, concupiscence, and virility to the insufficient covering of Nella in the tenzone between Dante and Forese Donati and elsewhere in the Purgatorio, reading the exposed female body as a signifier of civic decadence and church corruption.