Some 9th to 13th century ivory carvings from the Museo Civico Medievale in Bologna

On Saturday Lena and I went to the medeival museum, which was just around the corner from where I stayed. I don't know what I expected, but not this absolute awesomeness. So many things: a pair of chopines, beautiful 16th century glassware, cool stone carvings, gorgeous illuminated manuscripts, and some fun curiosa too.

In this post I will show you some of the carved ivory objects from the Middle Ages. Some of them are well known and have been reproduced in books on medieval craft, but not all.

Ivories can be good sources to clothing, even if they're monochrome, because the three-dimensional quality makes it possibel to see folds and wrinkles better. Especially for, say the 11th and 12th cnetury, that is improtant, because otherwise one could mistake the lines at wrists and ankles for stripes, insted of folds, or scrunched up fabric.

Byzantine ivory box 9th-12th century:

10th century

12th century:

13th century:

"Best of" Basilica di San Pietro

After the conference a lot of us had lunch together and then Lena Dahren, who's a Swedis expert on renaissance lace, and I went to the Basilica di San Pietro. It's a huge cathedral, with a crypt from the 12th century and even older roots. There are excavations being made under the church and you can actually go in there and look at them, from the crypt. We had a very nice archaeologist who showed us around.

This beautiful terracotta sculpture by Alfonso Lombardi, from the 1520s is found just to the right of the entrance.

Photo from wikipedia.

As you can see most of the sculptures wear allegorical dress. Except for the man in the left, who I took many photos of:

It's such a find! You can see all the details of this artisan's dress: he's wearing a coat with stand up collar made in one with the main body parts and shoulder wings, buttoned with a few, large buttons. Under it he's wearing a pleated shirt with a low neckline. If it's the shirt sleeves we see, or separate sleeves fastened under the shoulder wings we cannot know. His cap is probably made from felted wool and shoes reaching to his ankles.

The actual church is mainly baroque, which I'm not that interested in, so we went down into the crypt after photographing the terracotta sculpture.

Here ornaments from the 12th century were hung on one of the walls:

There were also relics - these are from the protmartyrs Vitalis and Agricola, who according to legend died in Bologna in the early 4th century. 

This is one of the amazing thing with being in Italy - there are so many layers of history, going back so far.

The following images are from inside the excavations - we were shown teh different layers, starting with a Roman road (this was were the Forum was), a 6th century remnant of a church, a 12th century pillar, and then some 16th century walls, all in the same place.

Roman bricks, with footprints of dogs :)

A late 14th century dress ornament found in the excavations. Th earcehologist thought that he was wearing armour because of the roundels, but I see a metal plaque belt, buttons, and a hood with metal ornaments, i.e bezants.

There were parts of a 16th century fresco underground too - this shows a rather nice detail of the shoulder of a woman's jacket.

After walking into a low, narrow tunnel we also got to see an ossuary.

Bologna

So, I've been to Bologna, for the annual conference of the Dressing the Early Modern Network. It was really interesting and Bologna is a beautiful, beautiful town. I got to meet and hang otu with old friends, and with new people, like Isis Sturtewagen, of the Medieval Silk Work blog (I've met here before, but we've never talked this much) and also, which was a surprise, Carolyn, who has the Modern Mantua-Maker blog. I think it's so cool when you run into people whose blogs you are reading.

Anyway, there were lots of interesting presentations and I must say that I really look forward to the book on medieval tailoring in Italy that Elisa Tosi-Brandi is working on. Meeting Femke Speelberg and listening to her presetnation sort of made up for me not being able to go to New York to see the Fashion and Virtue. Textile Patterns and the Print Revolution, 1520-1620 exhibition which she curated.

Anyway, I will write lots of posts with photos that I took that more directly relate to costume, but I thought that I would start with an explanatory one, and some photos of the town. According to guide books a lot of the city was destroyed in the Allied bombings, but if so, there must have been A LOT of medieval and renaissance buildings to start with, because there is so much left!

So, without further ado, I give you some photos from the historical centre of Bologna:

Piazza Maggiore, with the Basilica de San Petronio and Palazzo dei Notai.

Palazzo del Podestà, also on Piazza Maggiore

Where the conference was, Dipartimento di Storia Culture e Civiltà, at the University of Bologna
located by San Giovanni in Monte.

Piazza de Santo Stefano:

Under the Palazzo d'Accursio, in Sala Borsa,the sity library, you can visit excavations. The bottom layer is early Roman house walls, followed by imperial Roman and then medieval.

Pretty houses, there were lots of them:

The house with the loggia here was built in the 12th or early 13th century!

The porticoes of Bologna are nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage site  and are really worth a visit just for them. Read about their long history here. I took lots of photos of them. And the beautiful lamps hanging in many of them.

They ar ea wonderful invention: not only do they protect you from rain or provide shade in the sun, they also make it possible to stroll along the streets of Bologna without fearing for your life, unilke for instance Florence which is as full with traffic as it is with tourists on its narrow streets. (I still LOVE Florence though).

I lived less than five mintues walk from the Piazza Maggiore (and despite this it was quiet at night!). And there was also a shop which sold lingerie and haberdashery nearby.

I was good and only got this lovely lace with a fringe.

Making stuff with pearls and beads

Just before I went to Visby for a few days at the Medieval week I made this  pearl garland.

It's made from glass beads, and cheap acrylic "pearls" that I bought when I was at NESAT on Lodz in Poland in 2002. After the conference the organizers took us to this huge warehouse filled with sewing notions. I bought 1000 acrylic pearls for c. 1 £

The base is a thick woven cotton ribbon, like the ones we used to use for belts back in the 80s.

My main inspiration for this pearl garland was a bunch of 15th paintings, where you see women either wearing or making this kind of garland from pearls and beads, usually red or red and white. Of course now I can't find my favourite example, which I had on a postcard that I had pinned on my wall for over a decade ;)

Here's a 16th century example by Lucas Cranach though.

And one from 1465, showing St. Clare

And a very detailed 15th century one, which was my main inspiration for the exact design, though I chose blue and white since those are the colours of Gotvik.

Anyway, one could ask what these 15th century examples has to do with the High Middle Ages, my currently preferred period. And the answer would be: Not much. 

But, most paintings from the High Middle Ages are a bit less clear in details, and we do know that they used beaded ribbons as decoration (R. W Lightbown: Medieval European Jewellery, 1992) also in the High Middle Ages, so I extrapolated and wore it like this.

With a half circle veil

Or a circle veil.

I don't think it's too far-fetched to think that the gold headwear with a pink veil draped over it in this image from the Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift could be a stiff ribbon with beads on. Though obviously not blue and white :)

Friday night, while watching the Swedish team in women's Olympic soccer finals I made another garland. This one is more clearly inspired by a High Medieval image:

I've seen those garlands so many times, but I haven't noticed that they appear to be a ribbon with pearls or beads attached on top. As soon as I had noticed that I walked down town to get some green glass beads. Catchign a few pokémons on the way ;)

I used the metallic trim I got from Korps when I was in Visby. Then I sewed the beads/pearls on with unbelached line thread. The ties are cotton tape and I glued a silk ribbon to the back side of the metal ribbon to avoid a green forehead. And to secure the thread too, since it's hard to fasten thread properly in a ribon woven entirely from metal thread (wire around a thread core).

In my mind I looked fabulous with just the garland and no veil, but in reality I am definitely sticking to wearing a veil :)

Back

Medieval week shopping

I only went two and a half days to Visby Medieval week, and I'm really broke so my shopping was very limited.

The metal trims are from Medeltidsmode (the top one) and Korp's respectively, and will become edgings on veils and gebende, like this:

I made an edged veil just before I left, but with more silver-coloured trim. Because that's what I had. Here I am, weaing it at the medieval Chapter House in Visby.

The veil pins in the photo were made by some young guys and I didn't get their name. The pins are square rather than round and I'm afraid that might hurt the fabric. I hope that I can correct this with a hammer though. Anyway, they were the only ones that I found, since most vendors had sold out their stock of pins, and I they were really cheap.

The brass boar fitting is for Rickard and I haven't decided what to put it on yet - belt, hat or a quiver, which I plan to make for him this winter. It's made by Lorifactor, who have the most amazing replicas of medieval stuff. You really should visit their web site.

The "brooch" is from a merchant from Ukraine, whose name I have forgotten, I will try to find out however, because I liked their stuff. It's to be sewn on, but I think that I will make a brass pin myself, since I like being able to move my jewellery from one garment to another.

Most of my time I spent either in camp with my SCA friends or hanging in Hans-Gunnar's from Eikthyrnir, tent, drinking beer and chatting. I did not buy any shoes from him, but I was sorely tempted.