Straw hat debate

Bernice

The best straw when stripped was the whitest. Not only that, but the Wheat for hat straw made grain harvesting impossible and was thought one of the reasons that the Milanese were starving and needed bread when Francesco Sforza took the City. They had planted and harvested Hat wheat- it was not only the siege and the politics.
Now that could be an important factor as to why Bembo (or commissioner) painted the straw-hat in this card! .......... the social climate of that time.


Bee :)
 

Huck

Rosanne said:
Excellent link Bee thank you!

Interesting aside about straw hats. When they are first made they are pearly white and as they are polished and out in the weather they turn golden wheat coloured. The best straw when stripped was the whitest. Not only that, but the Wheat for hat straw made grain harvesting impossible and was thought one of the reasons that the Milanese were starving and needed bread when Francesco Sforza took the City. They had planted and harvested Hat wheat- it was not only the siege and the politics.

~Rosanne

Hm ... where do you have this from?
 

Rosanne

Do you mean about the Hat Straw or the Bread for Milan?

If Hat Straw from the web about the History of Hats
Sforza and bread......
from my brothers extensive collection of warfare Books and most likely the book of Sieges in Europe 1300-1500, I think the author is Duffy. Have to return the books pronto in case I steal them :D

You see when Sforza surrounded Milan to starve the population out, the last 100 years of problems came into play. The Plague only took, they reckon about 10% of Milans population, but there had been several years of bad Harvests, more requirement for Hat Straw as the Coastal places like Pesaro for same, had been decimated by the plague. The Venetian Milan/Florence wars had had an affect on the small holding farmers and the increased taxes on production made for a diversification- one of which was Hat straw.It culd be harvested by women and children in small bunches- not the huge harvesting of wheat grain and cereals. Milan was tricked into thinking that the Venetians would stop Sforza and went out to plant their crops. Sforza did not agree to the terms with Venice and so there was not the seed/flour for bread and pasta in Milan to have them hold out. They had plenty of Hat straw though.
So to show largesse and comfort the population he gave them bread. Sforza did not pillage the countryside either. Smart Man.

So if you want a word by word link to where I got it from..this is the best I can do.

~Rosanne
 

Huck

Well, if it's true, is would mean an extensive straw hat production in Milan in this time and probably also export of this article. Which somehow would be logical, as Milan definitely was a center of trade and likely also for the haute couture of the time. Cheap straw hats likely wouldn't be exported.

If it, as you say, had been a relevant factor in the issue of the siege in 1450, it would even give a logical reason for Sforza to have a straw hat at the Magician's table.

If Milan had been a big factor in the contemporary production, it seems plausible, that Bianca Maria's stay in Fermo and in Cremona caused, that these regions developed just this item as a local speciality. Such a context would even give some background for a local anecdote in Fermo, which might be not literally true, but just transforming the message, that the region got into the straw hat business cause Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria married and had some time in Fermo (filling the small town with interests in items, which were used for a noble court).

... :) ... perhaps you should steal your brothers book.
 

Rosanne

Ha! Huck - I will try, but I think my brother loves his books more than me. I will test my theory.
There is also a site that talks about the agriculture of the Po River plains and shows the Straw production areas as well as the Grapes/olives/wheat/rice...and shows graphs for the 15th Century- it has a funny name like mediolanum?? Geography and production. I cannot find it again. Bah!
Anyway, something is tickling my brain about the lowest left emblem on the Walnut doors of the Cremona Church. If I can remember correctly it is a Straw brush or something like that(it is not a bell)....I cannot find out. Do you know what it is Huck?
All I remember is the guide rabbiting on about the worm in the door and it's restoration. I knew about the rings. Also in one card you showed there is a crown in the margin with a wheat ear and olive leaves?
Thanks
~Rosanne
 

Huck

In general, women’s headgear in the early part of the Medieval period was oriented towards modesty. It was expected that the hair would be covered by a veil or kerchief. In the late 15th century, more elaborate hats began to be seen, and these eventually became the structured women’s hats of the 16th century. Slowly, these hats moved away from the modest ideal and became ornaments in their own right. It was at this time that the first makers of women’s hats specifically came into being. The first milliners were merchants who imported straw for hats from Milan and other regions. Women’s hat fashions progressed rapidly from this point on.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...h+century&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=firefox-a

A relative global article about hats and their development, but the only city, which is really mentioned by name is MILAN. It places the time of stronger development at late LATE 15TH CENTURY ... if we assume,that the general development was preceded some time in which aristocracy already experimented with new trends, then we're more or less precisely in the time of Bianca Maria.
Surely the French court and its courtiers had some interests before (as we see from their manuscripts), but with the battle of Azincourt (1415) the earlier French glamor found its crisis.

Somehow contradicting to this hypothesis ...

380px-Francsesco_Sforza.jpg

titled in Wikipedia with the information "Sforza insisted on being shown in his worn dirty old campaigning hat."

382px-Bianca_Maria_Visconti.jpg

Bianca is shown without hat, at least at this opportunity.

In these general collections of the Sforzas ...
http://www.kleio.org/en/history/monalisa/genealogy/index.html
... straw hats are rare, at least it wasn't found necessary to have "paintings with straw hats"

Here is a list with straw hats at pictures:
http://www.larsdatter.com/strawhats.htm
 

Rosanne

I don't think the campaign Hat contradicts anything. I think it was worn as pride for his career; he did not like pomp and circumstance- example not riding in to Milan in a triumph vehicle and walking beside his campaign horse?

It was not fashionable to wear hats for portraits at that time. Later Isabelle D'este was an exception I reckon. She defied convention.

It would seem that Milan has always been associated with Millinery. Or at least that's where the name of Hat making comes from.

The connections seem to be at least consistent.

~Rosanne
 

Huck

Well ...

Milliner
- mid-15c., "vendor of fancy wares, especially those made in Milan," Italian city, famous for straw works, fancy goods, ribbons, bonnets, and cutlery. Meaning of "one who sells women's hats" may be from 1520s, certainly in use by 18c. (it is difficult in early references to know whether the word means a type of merchant or "a resident of Milan" who is selling certain wares).
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=milliner

Surely a sort of argument in this question.

But ... Google book searches:
straw hats bianca maria visconti - NEGATIVE
milliner bianca maria visconti - NEGATIVE

Actually the most clear and real thing in it is, that Malatesta got a straw head from Cremona
 

Rosanne

Was 40 Kilometres (Cremona) or 20 Kilometers(Lodi)now; as the crow flies, a little closer to Milan, in the 15th Century considered to be within the district?
It is hard to consider. I walked 7 K to Pavia along the Hunting ground route (supposedly) to the Certosa of Pavia. It did not seem far.

Maybe Ladies preferred their Hats from Florence or Venice, seems kind of usual to get your bonnets from elsewhere. I wonder if we are all that different today? Venice Ladies and Florence ladies would send for Cremona Hats? I know that the lace makers of France would send Lace home with the Soldiers for their mistresses. They were the Nouveau Riche, huge consumers.

It must have been known of the Straw Hats....
Although Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan is proposed as the painting's commissioner, the consistency of taste from court to court makes such a determination difficult to argue. As the authors point out, a radiate sun was a Gonzaga as well as a Visconti heraldic heraldic
North Italian dynasties, the Gonzaga and Este as well as the Visconti, revered St. George. The cult of the hermit, one who lives in solitude, especially from ascetic motives. Hermits are known in many cultures. Permanent solitude was common in ancient Christian asceticism; St. Anthony of Egypt and St. Simeon Stylites were noted hermits. St. Anthony was as widespread in Ferrara as in Milan. Seignorial predilection for the warrior George (whose halo is here displaced by a very secular, if glamorous, straw hat) unquestionably authentic.
Pisanello Redux. (Review Essay).

http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/p/pisanell/index.html

First painting of Pissanello 'Virgin appears to Anthony and George'..... wonderful hat! Likely commissioner Visconti Senior. Now why you would wonder...the Straw Hat?

I did not know about that the Visconti revered Saint George??????
Maybe the missing Devil and Tower is the Dragon and the Princess?

I love this History forum...and I think you are pretty cool too Huck!
~Rosanne
 

Rosanne

Guess I should make myself clear. Sforza beats the Dragon (alluding to the viper) Saint George's hat is now on the Table. No wonder Sforza did not wear ostentatious hats- even straw ones :laugh:

So Huck it would seem that Straw Hats and Visconti's go together.
So the idea of the Hat straw and Milan siege maybe not a fiction.
I will see if summer campaigns the soldiers wore straw hats.

~Rosanne