Pandolfo III Malatesti (1370-1427), lord of Fano, carefully constructed his image, reflecting a very specific cultural and ideological programme and the political intention to manifest his power. From details of expenditure in contemporaneous accounting records it is possible to infer that, over a short period of time, the court of Pandolfo in Brescia and Fano acquired a character of refined grandeur and sophistication, attested to by the purchase of luxury objects and elegant, fashionable items of clothing. But dress did not signify merely affectation and banality. It testified as much to a person as to an era and a civilisation; properly interrogated, the language of dress can reveal important information about lordly power and about the relationships, of belonging or of exclusion, that were expressed through it. Both the style and colours of garments attest to a highly hierarchical society, one in which any inversion of roles between classes was perceived as one of the greatest dangers and which viewed any form of social mobility with suspicion. In this context, the prestige that Pandolfo III Malatesti both recognised as an indispensable attribute of seigneurial power, and claimed, can be found in the use of clothing at court as an effective domain for strengthening one’s personal, familial and political identity.

Clothing and power at the court of Pandolfo III Malatesti in the accounting records of the time (XV century),

Anna Falcioni
2024

Abstract

Pandolfo III Malatesti (1370-1427), lord of Fano, carefully constructed his image, reflecting a very specific cultural and ideological programme and the political intention to manifest his power. From details of expenditure in contemporaneous accounting records it is possible to infer that, over a short period of time, the court of Pandolfo in Brescia and Fano acquired a character of refined grandeur and sophistication, attested to by the purchase of luxury objects and elegant, fashionable items of clothing. But dress did not signify merely affectation and banality. It testified as much to a person as to an era and a civilisation; properly interrogated, the language of dress can reveal important information about lordly power and about the relationships, of belonging or of exclusion, that were expressed through it. Both the style and colours of garments attest to a highly hierarchical society, one in which any inversion of roles between classes was perceived as one of the greatest dangers and which viewed any form of social mobility with suspicion. In this context, the prestige that Pandolfo III Malatesti both recognised as an indispensable attribute of seigneurial power, and claimed, can be found in the use of clothing at court as an effective domain for strengthening one’s personal, familial and political identity.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11576/2749631
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