It is nevertheless beyond a doubt that nowhere was so
much importance attached to dress as in Italy. The nation was, and is,
vain; and even serious men among it looked on a handsome and becoming
costume as an element in the perfection of the individual. At Florence,
indeed, there was a brief period when dress was a purely personal
matter, and every man set the fashion for himself, and till far into
the sixteenth century there were exceptional people who still had the
courage to do so; and the majority at all events showed themselves
capable of varying the fashion according to their individual tastes. It
is a symptom of decline when Giovanni della Casa warns his readers not
to be singular or to depart from existing fashions Our own age, which,
in men's dress at any rate, treats uniformity as the supreme law, gives
up by so doing far more than it is aware of. But it saves itself much
time, and this, according to our notions of business, outweighs all
other disadvantages.
In Venice and Florence at the time of the Renaissance there were rules
and regulations prescribing the dress of the men and restraining the
luxury of the women. Where the fashions were more free, as in Naples,
the moralists confess with regret that no difference can be observed
between noble and burgher. They further deplore the rapid changes of
fashion, and--if we rightly understand their words--the senseless
idolatry of whatever comes from France, though in many cases the
fashions which were received back from the French were originally
Italian.
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