Oro e gioielli nel Rinascimento

1. Girdle, late 14th century
Italy; Venice (?)
Basse taille enamel and silver-gilt plaques, mounted on a woven band
Extravagant girdles used to cinch the fall of clothing at the waist were often part of betrothal gifts, dowries, and counter-dowries (given by the groom). One of the stories of Boccaccio's Decameron (1349–52) included girdles, along with rings, as gifts for a new bride. Intact girdles such as this one are rare. It would have been worn under the breasts, pulled through the buckle—here in the form of a curving figure—and then hanging to the ground, its gilt details and enameling catching the light. The enamel technique known as basse taille allows the silver below to shine through the translucent enamels.

2. Pendant with facing couple (obverse) and sacred monogram (reverse), 15th century
Italy
Silver gilt, niello
This pendant is a love token, showing a young couple facing each other separated by stylized pinks, but the reverse includes the sacred monogram ihs, the first three letters of the Greek name of Jesus Christ. It reminds us of the role of the sacred in everyday life in the Renaissance and may have been turned to the reverse when the wearer entered church for services. The niello technique used here to fill engraved lines on a metal plate was described by Giorgio Vasari in the introduction to his second edition of the Lives of the Artists (1568).

3. Jewel with gold letters spelling amor, mid-15th century
Franco-Flemish
Gold, pearls, diamond, emerald paste
This gold cluster jewel includes the Latin word amor (love) in delicate gold letters. It could have been worn either as a pendant or a brooch, and in portraits of young women many similar jewels are seen in their hair or at the shoulder or neck. Expensive jewelry played an important role in betrothal and marriage, and the groom gave brooches to the bride as tokens of love. In 1447, for example, Marco Parenti gave his betrothed, Caterina Strozzi, a golden brooch with two sapphires and three pearls to be worn on her shoulder.

Courtship and Betrothal in the Italian Renaissance

In the Italian Renaissance, as now, lovers exchanged gifts. The physical embodiment of desire, these objects often display literary or symbolic representations of the pursuit or attainment of the lover. Couched in the ancient metaphor of the phoenix, the mythical bird that burns yet emerges unscathed from the embers, the explicit language of desire winds along the length of a woven belt: I WILL SMOULDER EVEN AS A PHOENIX/ WITH THE FIRE OF YOUR KISSES,/ AND I WILL DIE. Though its author has eluded identification, the verse echoes chivalric love poetry from the late Middle Ages by Petrarch or Dante, texts well known among a broad range of social classes by the middle of the sixteenth century through musical contexts such as madrigals as well as in written form. Belts or girdles (17.190.963) were associated with fertility as well as marriage, since the touch of a particular relic of the Virgin's girdle was said to aid women in childbirth. The front of a niello plaque that cinched this belt features a profile portrait of an amorous couple, the woman's arm provocatively encircling the shoulders of her lover. The woman wears a head brooch and a pearl necklace, both characteristic bridal ornaments; a lady holding a carnation, traditional symbol of love, betrothal, and marriage, is on the reverse. Mentioned in literary and documentary contexts, belts had a practical function as well, and were probably worn by women high above the waist with the weighted ends dangling suggestively.