Professor Victoria Bartels, who teaches Italian Arts from Antiquity to Michelangelo and Italian Renaissance Art, has published a chapter in the new collection Refashioning the Renaissance: Everyday Dress in Europe, 1500-1650, edited by Paula Hohti and issued by Manchester University Press.
Entitled “Dressed to kill: arms, armour and protective attire in Renaissance men’s middle- and lower-class dress,” her text discusses how this clothing expressed contemporary notions of masculinity and social status. With a focus on Florence and other Medici-governed territories and using the large data set of Italian inventories collected by the Refashioning the Renaissance project, Bartels examines how arms were legally regulated, their prevalence in the urban middle and lower classes, and the complicated practice of petitioning the state for weapon privileges.
The book is open access and can be read here.