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The court was an enchanted storehouse for the most precious treasures of its time. Mosaics, frescoes, pictures and tapestries adorned its walls and ceilings as in a cathedral. Objects in silver and rock crystal filled cabinets and cupboards. Magical gems and minerals were kept in studioli, or small private studies. There were libraries of richly illuminated manuscripts. Huge looking glasses magnified the rooms. The rarest plants grew in pleasaunces like miniature botanical gardens, and water was ingeniously channelled along the most elaborate courses. In menageries exotic beasts amazed the visitor. Magnificence, imagination on the grand scale, and opulence in all things - such were the hallmarks of the court. The man who inhabited a court was not as others were. He was known, to quote Jean-Marie Apostolides in a recent book on the court of Louis XIV, "by his physical capacity for parading an overplus," in dress, behaviour and appetite for luxury. Byzantium, that apex of courtly and sacred ritual, had the most detailed system of court costume. There every courtier, whether or not he held official rank, dressed according to his social standing and position in the hierarchy. You could tell that a man belonged to the court by the colour and cut of his tunic, and the ornaments he wore. This was true also of the Carolingian court and the courts of the Renaissance. Excerpted from The Courts of the Italian Renaissance, Sergio Bertelli, Facts on File Publications, 1986. |