Enfilade

Carlo Caliari, Embassy of Shah ‘Abbas I to Venice, 1595
(Venice: Doge’s Palace)

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From ArtHist.net:

Trade, Production, and Consumption of Textiles and Dress in Early Modern Venice

Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani, Venice, 28–29 May 2025

Organized by Jola Pellumbi, Sara van Dijk, and Torsten Korte

Registration due by 25 May 2025

Venice in the early modern period flourished as a centre of textile production and trade, shaping and fostering global networks of connections that directly impacted dress in Europe and elsewhere. Due to Venice’s impenetrable location, its proximity to the centre of Europe, and a long-standing tradition of merchants and seafarers, Venice had positioned itself as a principal gateway between Europe and the East. Whether it was through the importation of luxury goods such as textiles and carpets, exports of beauty products and perfumes, or exchanges of ambassadorial gifts, Venice aided in the dissemination and infiltration of ideas, styles, and designs between Europe and the East. Furthermore, due to the flourishing art production and the thriving printing press in 16th-century Venice, textile patterns and dress styles were able to spread throughout Europe and the rest of Venice’s trading posts around the world influencing fashions, designs, methods of production, and patterns of consumption. Apart from the unaffected patrician government attire, infiltrations of new styles were particularly noticeable in Venice itself, throughout Carnival festivities, dogal and ambassadorial processions, operas and theatres, gambling dens, and in everyday life where both spaces and bodies were adorned.

This conference aims to generate a discussion about the role of Venice as a centre of a global network of connections as seen through its trade, production, and consumption of textiles and dress as well as carpets, haberdashery, beauty products, perfumes, dyes, feathers, jewellery, and design. Registration (€15 + €2 administrative costs) can be booked here until 25 May.

Organised by Jola Pellumbi and Sara van Dijk (Dressing the Early Modern Network) and Torsten Korte (University of Bern), in collaboration with the Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani and the University of Bern, and generously supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.

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18.00  Evening Lecture
The Mysterious Blue in Dürer’s Feast of the Rosary (1506): On the Problem of Interpreting Textile Colours in the Painting — Philipp Zitzlsperger (University of Innsbruck)

19.00  Ricevimento at the Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani

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9.30  Registration and coffee

10.00  Welcome

10.10  Session 1 | Luxury and Trade
Chair: Luca Molà
• From Venice to Lyon and Vice Versa: The Road to a New Trade in Fashionable Silk Fabrics, 17th to 18th Century — Moïra Dato (University of Bern)
• Francesco Zen: Luxury Trade and Technological Innovation between Venice and Constantinople in the Early 16th Century — Elisa Puppi (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia)
• Venetian Trade of Italian Textiles in Hungary until the End of the 16th Century — Maxim Mordovin (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
• Beyond Luxury: The Circulation of Silk Waste in Early Modern Venice (1500–1650) — Sofia Gullino (Università degli Studi di Padova)

12.00  Lunch break

14.00  Session 2 | Global Connections
Chair: Catherine Kovesi
• Circulating Civilisation: Venetian Glass Beads as Agents of Global (Ex)Change — Sandrine Welte (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia)
• ‘Sempre Magnifico’: Catherine de’ Medici through the Eyes of Venetian Ambassadors — Emily Averiss (Warburg Institute, University of London)
• Under the Radar or over the Top? Clothing of Jerusalem Pilgrims in the Late 15th Century — Alicia Wolff (University of Heidelberg)

15.30  Coffee and tea break

16.00  Session 3 | The Politics of Dress
Chair: Jola Pellumbi
• Sartorial Rhetoric: Dress and Anglo-Venetian Relations in the Early 16th Century — Grace Waye-Harris (University of Adelaide)
• The Collective Wig: Political Power and Periwigs in 18th-Century Venice — Liz Horodowich (New Mexico State University)

17.00  Closing remarks

17.15  Farewell and aperitivo

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Note (added 23 April 2025) — This posting originally appeared April 22; it was moved back to April 19th for improved continuity with other posts.