I Early Modern Cultures of Making In early modern Augsburg, a cultural and commercial hub of Southern Germany, feathers held a prominent place in the city’s symbolic universe. Archaeological, visual and textual evidence shows that façade paintings of non-European birds, for instance, must have been seen by citizens who themselves had made feathers an integral part of their clothing. In occasion of the wedding of Anton Fugger and Barbara Montfort in 1591, Abraham Schelhas painted a Geschlechtertanz that shows the emotional significance of feathers for such celebrations: feathers were prominent items that the guests, whose honour this painting praises and commemorates, wore in their hair or on
In recent years, discussions about veiling have almost always revolved around Islamic women wearing hijab or other head coverings. To counterbalance this eastern-centred controversy, Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli’s A Capo Coperto focuses on the western uses of veils. In doing so, Muzzarelli reminds us that the prescription for women to cover their heads has also been a crucial part of our western history and culture, not only of the Islamic one. Her aim is to show who covered their head, with what consciousness it was done, what people covered their heads with and with what results. Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli is professor at the Department of Literature and Philosophy of Bologna University wh
