Abstract
Habitus, from the Latin habeo, corresponds both to “dress” and “way of being,” and as such opens up the possibility of a dialectic between these two terms.1 Clothes, in so far as they cover, adorn, and dress the body, bear the signs of a complex and ambiguous relationship with identity. An identity which is both hidden and suggested in the veil of images forming its public and private faces. To this kind of process, fashion and clothes have a great deal to contribute and tell. My aim in this paper is to illustrate how such a fashion discourse is presented and how it contributed greatly to the performance of the self in one of the most canonical literary texts of the Italian Cinquecento, namely Il libro del cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier, 1528) by Baldassare Castiglione.2
To Anna and David
my joie de vivre
So my advice to our courtier is to shun this kind of dress; and I would add that he should decide for himself what appearance he wants to have and what sort of man he wants to seem, and then dress accordingly, so that his clothes help him to be taken for such, even by those who do not hear him speak or see him perform anything at all. [...] Moreover, habits and manners, as well as actions and words, provide clues to the quality of the man. (Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier)
See Cristina Giorcelli, ed Abito e Identità. Ricerche di storia letteraria e culturale, 2 Volumes. Rome: Edizioni Associate, 1997.
Castiglione, Baldassare. Il libro del cortegiano. Ed. Walter Barberis. Turin: Einaudi, 1998; The English edition from which I quote is: Castiglione, Baldassare. The Book of the Courtier. London: Penguin, 1967, translation and introduction by George Bull. Further references to Il cortegiano will appear parenthetically in the body of the text. For the notion of performance, see the fine study by Wayne Rebhorn, Courtly Performances. Masking and Festivity in Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1978.
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Paulicelli, E. (2001). Performing the Gendered Self in Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier, and the Discourse on Fashion. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Passions of the Earth in Human Existence, Creativity, and Literature. Analecta Husserliana, vol 71. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0930-0_17
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