Vestimenta drawing in use by the Romans

Abstract

The study of the Pompeii clothes, representative of the wider Roman culture, is carried out starting from the graphic analysis of the classical iconography of the MANN (National Archaeological Museum of Naples) in comparison with historiographical sources, by means of the representation of the main patterns of women's clothing in use by the Romans and their respective decorative and chromatic motifs, also in relation to the fibres of which the fabrics were made. This study, which also makes use of data obtained from the photogrammetric survey of a selected number of textile finds belonging to the "MANN Textile Collection", provides an unpublished archive of the main clothing patterns, codifying in technical drawings (paper patterns) the unconventional rules that the ancient Romans at that period used to make clothing on the basis of knowledge, practical experience and customs (dressing rituals) specific to the culture of the time. The flat development of each clothing patterns is entrusted to the geometric accuracy of the paper pattern, is proportionate to the anthropometric measurements of the woman of the Roman age (female normotype) and represented to scale.