A Note on the Costume of Titian's Flora

Abstract

In 1859, Burckhardt wrote that Titian's so-called Flora (Fig. 1) is wearing an “engagement” (Verlobung) gown.1 In 1966, Pope-Hennessy changed “engagement” to “bridal” and added the qualification “possibly.”2 Titian's Flora is shown in a sixteenth-century undergarment, the camicia. The camicia was in high fashion in the Italy of Titian's time, and worn by both sexes. As worn by women, it was a full-length garment, always sleeved, always falling in fullness from a gathering at the neckline, almost always of soft white cloth, and always worn, in society, with other layers of garments over it.3 Beginning as a daytime undergarment, the camicia alone came to be worn as a nightgown in the sixteenth and succeeding centuries4 and perhaps could be called a “post-wedding” gown, chronologically speaking, but this is an avenue which will not be explored here.

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