Identifier: menmannersofoldf00biag (find matches)
Title: Men and manners of old Florence
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Biagi, Guido, 1855-1925
Subjects:
Publisher: Chicago, A. C. McClurg and co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ey have jaws like a donkey, theyquickly correct them. If their shoulders are too large,they plane them ; if one projects more than the other,they stuff them so with cotton that they seem inproportion. And so on with breasts and hips, doingmore without a scalpel than Polycletus himself couldhave -done with one. The Florentine women are past-mistresses of painting and modelling, for it is plainto see that they restore where nature has failed. We cannot blame them, nor do we wish to do so.Poor women ! this was the only freedom they enjoyed,to masquerade as youthful, happy creatures, to maketheir faces bright and fresh while their hearts were oftenweeping at finding themselves supplanted by otherwomen. They also loved to change the fashion andshape of the dresses, and here they were able to givefree vent to their ambition. The admirers of thepast, beginning with Dante, blame them for so muchchangeableness, which irritated even the moralisingstory-tellers and the rulers, not to mention the
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Photo-) (Alinari. THE TOMB OF FRANCESCO DATINI, IN THE CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO, PRATO. (To face page 104. PRIVATE LIFE OF THE FLORENTINES 105 husbands, who would willingly have economised onthese extravagant tastes of their wives. Sacchettihas much to say on this theme, over which he growseloquent. He writes in his virtuous indignation how some women had their dresses cut so low that thearmpit could be seen. They then jumped to the otherextreme, and made the collars come up to their ears.The girls who used to go about so modestly haveentirely changed the shape of their hood, so as toreduce it to a cap, and with this headgear they weararound their necks a collar to which are attached allsorts of little beasts, that hang down into their breasts.As for their sleeves, they can almost be called mat-tresses. Was there ever invented a more harmful,useless shape ? Could a woman, wearing those things,lift a glass or anything else from the table withoutsoiling both sleeves and table-cloth with

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