Michelle Laughran "'A Man Must Not Embelish Himself like a Woman: The Body and Gender in Renaissance Cosmetics" 15th Annual Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Interdisciplinary Symposium (University of Miami, 2006) The history of cosmetics and cosmetics' use has until very recently been largely ignored in European historiography. Understandably, the subject suffers at least in part by the virtue of its very nature, even more ephemeral than that of costume. What's more, this neglect may also the result of the fact that we dismiss cosmetics as trifling adornments of a body which we feel that we already understand far too well. Indeed, most cultures seem to have developed some kind of cosmetic practice,1 and it is very tempting to dismiss them all as the human equivalent of evolutionary mating displays, designed to attract attention in order to advertise a particular biological fitness as a mate. While certainly an interesting consideration, this generalization may however mask the many subtleties driving and being represented by the use of cosmetics. Examples like the nineteenth-century fashion of deliberately using cosmetics to create the pale, wan and frankly sickly appearance of consumption (as tuberculosis was romantically fashionable at the time) would seem in fact to undermine such a strictly evolutionary argument.2 Indeed, the very definition of what exactly constitutes cosmetic practice has changed over time. Unlike modern cosmetology, which tends to be perceived as an industry that produces merely topical preparations creating illusionary and superficial effects, pre-modern cosmetics' use was largely believed to have not only an aesthetic function but a medicinal one as well. Greek and Latin, for example, both distinguished between the "healthy" care of the body and the "unhealthy" disguising of it.3 While not always consistent between the two 1For more on the historiography of the body, see MICHELLE A. LAUGHRAN, "The Body," in Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, vol. 1, London 1999, pp. 101-104; ROVESTI, p. 186. 2"Ironically, not only did classical and early-Christian misogyny foster from the very beginning of European history a negative vision of cosmetics and their use in subsequent historiography, but so would its modern antitheses, Feminism and Marxism. Both would tend to consider cosmetics' use the result of male, capitalistic manipulation of women's insecurities and fears, and of an undermined female identity thereby constructed around physical appearance and appeal to men, all designed to generate profit from what are considered inherently exploitative products… Any study of cosmetics' use was thus perceived to be politicized from its very inception, either by collaborating with or combating against this internalized form of patriarchal, capitalistic oppression." (Storia d'Italia) 3Greek distinguished between the cosmetiche tecne and the commotiche tecne, and Latin likewise between the ars ornatrix and the ars fucatrix. Galen himself declared the former, "which is part of medicine… conserve[s] in the body all of its naturalness which is accompanied by natural beauty," while the latter was not medical, not least since some of its substances--like the white lead mentioned by Plautus--may have well been noxious, but--most importantly at the time--because it consisted of "rendering lighter the color of the face with medicaments, or to make hair curly, red or black (or, as women do, grow them long out of all proportion)… and similar things" (“Rendersi più chiaro il  Laughran 2 cultures, much "make-up" as we define it today tended to be considered fradulent (hence "trucco") deleterious and unwholesome, while "perfumery" instead was often considered therapeutic.4 In pre-modern Italy, cosmetics' ideal backdrop was a pale complexion, apparently untouched by the sun's rays to give the impression (as did soft and white hands, another long- standing preoccupation of cosmetics' use) that one had the luxury of avoiding going about outside on any daily labors. In addition, white operated as a blank canvas upon which a physiognomy could be painted: as Boccaccio had ranted, "Who is not aware that smoke- grimed walls, not to speak of women's faces, become white when whitewash is applied to them, and what is more, become colored according to whatever the painter chooses to put over the white?"5 But, as in the case of the idealized pale complexion, cosmetics had gone beyond a mere polychromatic aesthetic to become socio-economic indicators: these were at times the colore del viso con medicamenti, o farsi i capelli ricci o rossi o neri o, come fanno le donne, accrescerne a dismisura la lunghezza, queste ed altre simili sono operazioni della perniciosa arte del trucco, non dell’arte medica.”) (PAQUET, 20; GHISLAINE PULLIVUYT, Histoire du parfum: De l'Egypte au XIX siecle, Paris 1988, reprinted as Storia del profumo: Dall'Egitto all'Ottocento, trans. Margherita Botto, Milan 1989, p. 78; RICHARD CORSON, Fashion in Makeup From Ancient to Modern Times, London 1972, p. 49; Galen, quoted in FABIO RINALDI, I segreti della bellezza romana. Igiene, cosmesi, e dermocosmesi dell'antica Roma: Testimonianze archeologiche e letterarie, Milan 1991, p. 1 [translation mine]). 4"Most likely originally of religious origin, perfume or 'profumo' literally meant 'through smoke,' and referred to the use of incense to honor the gods or the dead and/or to dispel evil spirits. In Italian, as in Latin and the other romance languages, evil was male, a word used also to refer to sickness or disease. Thus, evil not only caused disease, but by its very nature (antithetical to the sweet "odor of sanctity"), it stank. As a kind of precursor to contemporary aromatherapy, the burning of incense or the carrying of sachets or other perfumes were thereby thought in traditional Galenic medicine to ward off disease, and indeed aromatics were one of the five main foci of Dioscorides's famous Herbal. As a result, comestics' use as the so-called ars ornatrix was considered a necessary tool in the related hygienes of good health and good disposition." (Storia d'Italia) 5BOCCACCIO, The Corbaccio, p. 54 and Il Corbaccio, p. 111; Nevertheless, white functioned as more than merely a blank page devoid of meaning. As attested the fifteenth-century herald who adapted courtly livery to elite costume and whose work would be published in Italian during the sixteenth-century, the white camicia or chemise worn by the lady symbolized her candor (and, indeed, "candida" simultaneously means "fair-colored," "frank" and "innocent" in modern Italian), while at the same time her damask white gown proclaimed her chastity. Thus, in an age in which only the wealthy could afford scrupulous hygiene of both body and clothing, immaculate whiteness signified an elite and rarefied holistic purity." (Storia d'Italia) ("E chi non sa che le mura affumicate, non che i visi delle femmine, ponendovi su la biacca, diventano bianche, e oltre a ciò colorite secondo il colore che al dipintore di quelle piacerà di porre sopra il bianco?")  Laughran 3 very colors which were also being contracted by the patrons of late-medieval and early- Renaissance art, precisely because it would have been well-understood exactly how costly these pigments were to produce and use. Indeed, Franco Sacchetti (1335-c.1402) would declare that the women of Florence were themselves "the greatest painters in the world" (“le migliori dipintori del mondo”): they could turn black into white, yellow into red, and--he claimed--they could be as "ugly as cockroaches" (“brutte come scarafaggi”) but they could still transform themselves into beauties.6 During the Renaissance, however, cosmetics would become more than just a straightforward socio-economic indicator. There would, in fact, scarcely be another historical period quite so preoccupied in producing scholarly treatises devoted to discussing the value of cosmetics together with the ideals and the meaning of physical beauty, while--at the same time--artists would not coincidently begin to paint the theme of women or "Venuses" at their mirrors or else with their make-up pots and brushes. Cosmetics had become a primary means of self-fashioning among both men and women, a vehicle for the very articulation and expression of a complex code of identity during what was arguably Italy's most influential era of the history of cosmetics. Although they did tend to glorify the human form, humanists would also nevertheless discover the classical ambivalence toward cosmetics. After all, true beauty was equated with a noble spirit, and "for this reason," as Agnolo Firenzuola claimed, "beautiful women have been sent among us as a sample and foretaste of heavenly things…"7 The question remained, however, of what exactly comprised "true" beauty. Over the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth century, several treatises would be composed specifically to address this very issue. In his Book of the Beautiful Woman [1554], for example, Federico Luigini would choose to consult Italian authors like Dante, Petrarch, Bembo and Ariosto, 6Biblioteca Mocenigo, Misc. A 127/57, p. 685 (translation mine); and FRANCESCO COGNASO, L'Italia nel Rinascimento, Vol. I, from the series Società e costume: Panorama di storia sociale e tecnologica, vol. 5, ed. Mario Attilo Levi, Turin 1965, p. 136 (translation mine). 7AGNOLO FIRENZUOLA, On the Beauty of Women [1524], trans. and ed. Konrad Eisenbichler and Jacqueline Murray, Philadelphia 1992, p. 11 and "Delle bellezze delle donne," in Opere, ed. Delmo Maestri, Turin 1977, p. 725. "onde ella è per saggio e per arra [delle cose del cielo] stata mandata tra noi…"  Laughran 4 together with Latin sources such as Ovid, in order to construct his ideal. By invoking humanist archetypes of feminine beauty like Petrarch's Laura, the ideal Renaissance beauty who emerged from this dialogue was to have full, long blond hair; luminous black eyes; eyelashes black as ebony; thin black eyebrows; a high, broad forehead, "full of divine beauty" ("piena di divine bellezze"); a small nose; cheeks whose "tenderness and whiteness likens them to that of milk… if not at times the fresh coloring of morning roses" ("le guance… assomigliando la loro tenerezza e bianchezza con quella del latte, se non inquanto alle volte contendono con la colorita freschezza delle mattutine rose"); and lips which were pink, or else, referring to Boccaccio's description of Fiammetta, red as two small rubies, framing teeth white as ivory or pearls.8 The reason for this particular ideal was again complexion, but in a far broader sense than we mean the term today. As a corollary to the classical association of corporeal beauty with spiritual goodness, contemporary medical theory asserted that somatic traits revealed otherwise hidden details of an individual's character. These connections were justified by Galenic theory: not only was a person's health thought to be determined by his or her own particular balance of corporeal humors--or one's "complexion" as it was technically called-- but so were one's physical characteristics, emotional states and personality (the "moti dell'animo," as Leonardo put it). Hence, a red-haired or ruddy person was theorized to have a jolly temperament, since both were supposed to be symptomatic of being "sanguine" as a result of an excess of blood among his or her bodily humors. As a result, one's "complexion," a traditionally key locus in the application of cosmetics, communicated more than merely superficial characteristics. For example, fair skin-coloring or complexion connoted not only a high social status (as such individuals could afford to avoid undue exposure to the bronzing rays of the sun) but it suggested an entire social ideology as well: the dark-skinned popolo physically demonstrated by this physiological definition an excess of humors which was believed to make them unpredictable and unreliable, while--by the same definition--the preferred fair complexion conversely indicated the balanced and moderate humors deemed necessary for a ruling class. In the Renaissance world of self-made men, contemporary fashion systems tended to aim at imparting tacit meanings through the conscious construction of costumes. As Jacob Burckhardt was quick to note in his study of the rise of the individual in Renaissance Italy, "But in proportion as distinctions of birth ceased to confer any special privilege, was the 8FEDERICO LUIGINI, Il libro della bella donna [1554], ed. Luigi Pescasio, Verona 1974, pp. 14-15, 21-22, 24-25, 29-30 & 31-32 (translation mine).  Laughran 5 individual himself compelled to make the most of his personal qualities, and society to find its worth and charm in itself. The demeanor of individuals, and all the higher form of social intercourse, became ends [which] pursued a deliberate and artistic purpose." (Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Never was this more evident than in the case of physiognomy. Not only was the face the most visible part of a person but, as Leonardo wrote, "It is true that signs on the face show in part the nature of men, their vices and their complexions."9 …it became the physical language by which one's very person was expressed. Perhaps the best example of this language is sixteenth-century physician and astrologer Girolamo Cardano's Metoposcopia, a catalog of over 800 schematic drawings of faces, identical except for a telltale line here or a birthmark there.10 (Slides 8-12). "A semiotics of marks," each communicated a specific underlying character or even astrological fate.11 So did the idealized female complexion as outlined by authors like Luigini. In what would be the culmination of Italian early-modern physiognomy, The Physiognomy of Man (first published in 1610), Giovan Battista Della Porta was no great admirer of women and largely ignored them, taking the classical position that they were incomplete, imperfect versions of the male. Nevertheless, according to Della Porta, what should have been a relatively unusual combination of fair skin, rosy cheeks, black eyes and eyebrows and blond hair that comprised the description of the ideal woman was, interestingly, an expression of an almost perfectly balanced complexion. The pale skin and light hair demonstrated the presence of the phlegmatic humor, the rosy cheeks the presence of blood, and the black eyes the presence of the melancholic humor (of the four, there was lacking only choler, which was supposed to encourage hirsutism and a quick temper, both of which were considered appropriate only to men). At the same time, dark eyelashes indicated--in a man at least--"a soul which is solid and constant"; black or blue eyes, neither too large nor too small, "an excellent constitution… demonstrating good judgement [and] faithfulness"; while a tall forehead "demonstrates good sense."12 ("Vero è che i segni de' volti 9Leonardo da Vinci, quoted in CAROLI, p. 16 (translation mine). mostrano in parte la natura degli uomini, i loro vizi e complessioni…") 10GIROLAMO CARDANO, Lettura della fronte: Metoposcopia, ed. Alberto Arecchi, Milan 1994. 11COURTINE and HAROCHE, p. 49 (translation mine). 12GIOVAN BATTISTA DELLA PORTA, Della fisognomia dell'uomo, Venice 1644, pp. 17-19, 79, 185 & 70 (translation mine). (“I peli delle palpebre neri, e sodi dimostrano animo sodo, e constante…”); (“Occhi d’ottima constitutione… che sono mezani, che vanno al colore azzurro, overo nero, dimostrano huomo d’acuto giuditio, fidele, e di molti negotij…”); (“La fronte distesa in lungo, dimostra buon senso…").  Laughran 6 The small mouth and thin eyebrows were however considered by Della Porta to be quintessentially feminine characteristics (indicating, according to him, effeminacy when present in a man), as did a small nose which demonstrated, he said, a "servile mentality, thieving and unfaithful… I would liken it to that of women". Last but not least, the broadness of the forehead compensated for its height, indicating a tendency to change one's mind and suggesting stupidity.13 Since Della Porta claimed that women "are full of arguments and frauds and it is impossible to have peace and a woman under the same roof,"14 the ideal woman thus did not threaten to be a perfect exemplar of the human complexion. For that, she would need the complementary presence and guidance of the ideally moderate male complexion. In addition, Firenzuola continued, there should also be "somewhere fair and vermillion, as in the cheeks… [and] somewhere red, as in the lips…" ("dove candido e vermiglio come le guance… dove rosso come le labbra…")15 Red too had gained popularity among humanists, not least because Plato had called it a spirit color, "holding the world together."16 Mario Equicola's Libro di natura d'amore had in fact recommended that the skin should not "tend toward pallor, but should be mixed with blood colour," while Ludovico Dolce would even lament the contemporary overuse of "vermilion cheeks with lips of coral, because faces treated in this fashion look like masks…"17 The Renaissance use of rouge thus may have originated not only as a means to mimic the sanguine complexion, but--as a kind of precursor to modern color therapy--because the color red was believed in contemporary medical theory to have particularly strong prophylactic powers.18 Indeed, often expensive scarlets and crimsons seem to have been preeminent among clothing dyes as reported by Giovanaventura Rosetti in his book of dyeing secrets, the Plictho [1548], in which he gives thirty-five recipes for reds (often utilizing kermes, the most expensive of all dyes derived from the ground hermes insect), followed by only twelve for blacks, nine for purples, and six for blues.19 13Ibid., pp. 111, 78, 85 & 70 (translation mine). 14Ibid., p. 50 (translation mine). (“Il naso picciolo è d’ingegno servile, ladro & infedele, io lo rassomigliarei alle donne”); (“bottega piena de liti, e di fraudi, & essere impossibile albergar in un tetto la quiete, e la donna”). 15FIRENZUOLA, On the Beauty of Women, p. 15 and "Delle bellezze delle donne," p. 732. 16Plato, quoted in HILLS, p. 167. 17Mario Equicola and Ludovico Dolce, quoted in Ibid., p. 212. 18FRANÇOISE PIPONNIER and PERRINE MANE, Se vêtir au Moyen Âge, Paris 1995, reprinted as Dress in the Middle Ages, trans. Caroline Beamish, New Haven 1997, p. 57. The contemporary talismanic wearing of coral was a perfect example of these attempts to use red to ward off male, both spiritual and physical. 19HILLS, p. 174.  Laughran 7 At the same time, while cosmetics had long been particularly associated with women, men were not averse to using cosmetics themselves.20 Sixteenth-century books of secrets (bestselling compilations of trade and household hints and recipes) often included recipes for cosmetics like beard-dyes, thus making it doubly unlikely that their audience was comprised of--or their contents utilized by--women alone. With the advent of courtly baroque aesthetics, in fact, men would openly use cosmetics to the same degree as their female counterparts: even before Louis XIV, men of the late-fifteenth-century Milanese court would change their hair color daily, while French king Henry III was famed for wearing saffron and rouge on a chalk foundation and powering his hair with violet-profumed cipria powder and Mazarin used make-up to seem more virile by covering the signs of old age.21 Despite widespread use of cosmetics by both men and women throughout the early- modern period, however, a stronger gender distinction was thus nonetheless developing in their use. "Cicero said there are two kinds of beauty," sixteenth-century writer Agnolo Firenzuola had in fact asserted, "one of which consists in loveliness and the other in dignity, and that loveliness is appropriate to women, and dignity is appropriate to men."22 Giovanni Della Casa concurred, advising in his famous ettiquette treatise, the Galateo: Thus, a man must not embellish himself like a woman, for his adornments will then contradict his person, as I see some men do, who put curls in their hair and beards with a curling iron, and who apply so much make-up to their faces, neck, and hands that it would be unsuitable for any young wench, even for a harlot who is more anxious to hawk her wares and sell them at a price.23 Interestingly, this gender distinction seems to have also occurred at more or less the same time in other aspects of the late Renaissance fashion system as well. Whereas men's and women's dress had previously tended to reflect and complement each other, clothing items were themselves steadily gendered during this period (as in the case of skirts and gowns, for example, which would be increasingly identified as "female" costume).24 20Interestingly, ethnologists have noted that in many indigenous societies it is the male who utilizes cosmetics and similar adornments more so than women (GIAMPIERO BONETTI, "La cosmesi dei primitivi nella cosmesi di oggi," in Alla ricerca della cosmesi dei primitivi, ed. Paolo Rovesti, Venice 1977, p. 198). 21JACQUELINE HERALD, Renaissance Dress in Italy, 1400-1500, London 1981, p. 164; and PAQUET, 51. 22FIRENZUOLA, On the Beauty of Women, p. 37 and "Delle bellezze delle donne," p. 757. 23GIOVANNI DELLA CASA, Galateo [1558], ed. and trans. Konrad Eisenbichler and Kenneth R. Bartlett, Toronto 1986, p. 54 and ed. Giancarlo Rati, Rome 1993, p. 70. 24BREWARD, pp. 51-52; and NUNN, pp. 7 & 35.  Laughran 8 The issue seems to have stemmed from one of "virtue," derived from the Latin "virtus," meaning "manly excellence." While the concept was slightly broader in Renaissance Italian, there was nevertheless a contemporary perception that women could not possibly demonstrate the same degree of virtù as did men: as Signor Gaspare exaggeratedly declaimed in Baldassar Castiglione's famous dialogue, The Book of the Courtier: "Women are imperfect creatures and therefore of less dignity than man and incapable of practicing the virtues practiced by men."25 Thus, courtly ladies may have been perceived as resorting to enhancing their physical attractiveness in order to compensate for and dissimulate their apparent deficiencies. At the same time, even though men were permitted the use of cosmetics and perfumes within the Renaissance fashion system, those who crossed the bounds of sprezzatura through cosmetics may have been associated with a similar incapacity of courtly virtù or "manly excellence," as Castiglione would imply: We can see that your appearance is very agreeable and pleasing to all, even if your features are not very delicate, though then again you manage to appear both manly and graceful… And I would like our courtier to have the same aspect. I don't want him to appear soft and feminine as many try to do, when they not only curl their hair and pluck their eyebrows but also preen themselves like the most wanton and dissolute creatures imaginable… Since Nature has not in fact made them the ladies they want to seem and be, they should be driven out from all gentlemanly society, let alone the Courts of great lords.26 Sprezzatura therefore became the watchword of the day. Difficut to define in English, sprezzatura was a cultivated nonchalance that aimed at maintaining constantly a natural and effortless appearance. Indeed, when Castiglione would introduce the concept of sprezzatura in his Book of the Courtier, he extended Ovid's saying of "the art is to conceal the art" beyond its original reference to cosmetics in order to apply it to the recommended presentation of the courtier's persona as a whole. Nevertheless, one of the few ways that Castiglione himself was very comfortable with his courtly lady demonstrating the courtier's sprezzatura was precisely through her use of cosmetics: Surely you realize how much more graceful a woman is who, if indeed she wishes to do so, paints herself so sparingly and so little that whoever looks at her is unsure whether she is made-up or not, in comparison with one whose face is so encrusted that she seems to be wearing a mask and who dare not laugh for fear of causing it to crack, and who changes colour only when she dresses in the morning… How much more attractive than all the others is a pretty woman who is quite 25CASTIGLIONE, The Book of the Courtier, p. 217 and Il libro del cortegiano, p. 274. 26CASTIGLIONE, The Book of the Courtier, pp. 60-61 and Il libro del cortegiano, pp. 49-50.  Laughran 9 clearly wearing no make-up on her face, which is neither too pallid nor too red, and whose own colouring is natural and somewhat pale (but who occasionally blushes openly from embarrassment or some other reason)… betraying no effort or anxiety to be beautiful. Such is the uncontrived simplicity which is most attractive to the eyes and minds of man, who are always afraid of being tricked by art..27 It is thus no coincidence that some of the most renowned experts in cosmetics' use during the sixteenth century were actually great signore, like Caterina Sforza of Forlì (1463-1509) and Isabella d'Este of Mantua (1474-1539).28 Hence the introduction of cosmetics into the Renaissance fashion system was about much more than straightforward socio-economic indicators in terms only of direct financial investment in fashion.29 Here, socio-economic status was communicated by more than just expensive materials; it was incarnated the very conceptions of health and character, both of which were supposed to be products of a noble complexion. Prominent among secrets divulged in these manuals were thus hair colorings, including red, black, but--most popularly--the "arte biondeggiante," the dye formula which would give women the golden tresses which had been so lauded by humanists. (By the Renaissance, in fact, "washing one's hair" had actually become synonymous with hair coloring.)30 The 27CASTIGLIONE, The Book of the Courtier, pp. 86-87 and Il libro del cortegiano, pp. 87-88. 28Caterina Sforza's manuscript, Il libro degli "experimenta," contained more than 500 recipes not only for cosmetics, but also--as we have seen was common--for alchemy like "How to create water which will break iron as it if were glass," and what we might today consider the more strictly medicinal, such as plague remedies and, interestingly, "How to make a person sleep so that you may surgically operate as much as you like without it being felt, et est probatum" (E. Sani, "Il 'ricettario di bellezza' di Catherina Sforza," in Minerva farmaceutica 4 [1953], pp. 134-135). Isabella d'Este, on the other hand, was apparently famed as an expert in perfumery who used her creations in the ritualized exchanges of courtly gifts. In return, she seems to have possessed the "secret" for toothwashes, the recipe for which was sent apparently to her by the Queen of Naples. She also developed other cosmetics, like nail buffers and hair dyes, the latter of which actually functioned more as a kind of "remedy" by--she thought--simply "returning" her hair to its original color (COGNASO, p. 136). 29Indeed, Stephen Greenblatt observes that in the sixteenth century the term "fashion" itself begins to be used widely to designate the "forming of a self" (STEPHEN GREENBLATT, Renaissance Self- Fashioning, Chicago 1980, pp. 3-4). As Castiglione put it, "In addition to noble birth, I would have the courtier favoured in this respect, too, and receive from Nature not only talent and beauty of countenance and person but also that certain air and grace that makes him immediately attractive to all who meet him…" ("Il cortegiano, adunque, oltre alla nobilità, voglio che sia in questa parte fortunato, ed abbia da natura non solamente lo ingegno e bella forma di persona e di volto, ma una certa grazia e, come si dice, un sangue, che lo faccia al primo aspetto a chiunque lo vede grato e amabile…") (CASTIGLIONE, The Book of the Courtier, p. 55 and Il libro del cortegiano, p. 41). For more about the resulting sixteenth-century distinctions growing between the elite and popular body, and the standardization of the elite complexion as the "healthy" one, see MICHELLE ANNE LAUGHRAN, "The Body, Public Health and Social Control in Sixteenth-Century Venice," Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut 1998, pp. 137-147). 30COGNASO, p. 133.  Laughran 10 Venetians were the most famed for their technique: Cesare Vecellio, in his Habiti antichi e moderni di tutto il mondo, captured the process in his famous engraving of "Women of Venice, While They Bleach Their Hair" ("Donne di Venetia, mentre si fanno biondi i capelli") (fig. 2), noting that they would apply their various "acque" (usually a composition of saltpeter, saffron, madder, wine, spermaceti, lime and silver salts) and then sit on their "altane" or terraces, wearing a crownless straw hat through which their hair would be bleached by the sun (but which would nevertheless protect their fair skin from its unwanted bronzing rays).31 Hairdyes however were not important merely because they imparted a popular tint ("You know," as Firenzuola had asserted to ladies in his dialogue, "that the proper and true color of hair should be blond" ["E voi sapete che de' capegli il proprio e vero colore è esser biondi"]),32 but rather since again they suggested the health and vigor of one's underlying complexion: "Red or blond hair demonstrates a good bodily constitution" (“Capelli rossi e biondi dimostrano buona constitutione di corpo…”), as Della Porta claimed.33 At the same time, because of the entwined and interdependent relationship between exterior appearance and internal health, the processes of dyeing one's gray hair or attempting to prevent baldness, for example, meant that any such procedures to seem young were considered tantamount to medicinal applications to remain young. As such, "those remedies which have the virtue of coloring hair" (“Delli rimedi che danno alcun colore a capelli”) would continue to be included in physician Giovanni Marinello's cosmetic manual, Gli ornamenti delle donne, and the others which soon followed.34 Nevertheless, while some viewed cosmetics as medicinal remedies designed to help create an idealized complexion, not everyone agreed, thereby recalling the classical distinction between the "healthy" ars ornatrix and the "unhealthy" ars fucatrix. Needless to say, such attempts to manipulate impressions--especially when coupled with the advent of the Reformation--led some elites to increasing preoccupations about mental reservation and dissimulation over the course of the sixteenth century. Part of the popularity of physiognomy treatises had in fact been due to the hope that dissimulation would have been rendered highly difficult through their application.35 Still, just as portraits were painted during the Renaissance in accordance with the canons of physiognomy to exaggerate (or potentially 31CESARE VECELLIO, Habiti antichi et moderni di tutto il mondo, Venice 1598, p. 113; and MARIA S. DE SALVIA BALDINI, Dizionario di bellezza: L'arte della cosmesi, Milan 1995, p. 270. 32FIRENZUOLA, On the Beauty of Women, p. 45 and "Delle bellezze delle donne," p. 764. 33DELLA PORTA, p. 239 (translation mine). 34MARINELLO, p. 63 (translation mine). 35COURTINE and HAROCHE, p. 38.  Laughran 11 even invent) not only emotional expressions but also particularly significant somatic characteristics of the subject,36 so too could cosmetics alter perceptions by adding, emphasizing or eliminating the representation of these "stimmate sociali" as desired.37 Thus, wrote Della Porta, physiognomy "is very real, since it is based on natural principles, and is useful for knowing the vices of others, [as well as] for being able to look out for, amend and cure our own, as Galen and other physicians say" ("E molto verdadiera, perche stà appoggiata sù principij naturali, & utile per conoscere gli altrui vitij, per poter emendare, e guarire i suoi proprij, come Galeno, & altri Medici dicono").38 For this reason, Castiglione's Count Lodovico would not surprisingly lament, "Every woman is extremely anxious to be beautiful or at least, failing that, to appear so. So when Nature has fallen short in some way, she endeavours to remedy the failure by artificial means…" ("Gran desiderio universalmente tengon tutte le donne di essere e, quando esser non possono, almen di parer belle; però, dove la natura in qualche parte in questo è mancata, esse si sforzano di supplir con l'artificio").39 Indeed, the causal connection between health, interior morality and outward appearance as expressed through physiognomy was not considered merely metaphorical, but an empirically evident phenomenon in the case of a disease like syphilis. In the early years of the epidemic, syphilis was both highly virulent and unmistakably obvious: many victims suffered extensive scaring and even lost their noses to the disease, as its cartilage collapsed and the bone became infected in the advanced stages of the affliction. The response for at least some sufferers was to attempt to alter their appearance through one of the earliest examples of cosmetic surgery. As physician Gaspare Tagliacozzi (1545-1599) explained in his De curtorum chirugia, he would utilize skin grafts from the arm to rebuild the missing feature (fig. 3), so that while the new nose was clearly reconstructed, Tagliacozzi aimed to "heal the spirit" as much as the body by alleviating, if not eliminating, its stigma. (Famed sixteenth-century French surgeon Ambroise Paré, on the other hand, suggested a more convenient and potentially more convincing prosthesis instead [fig.4].)40 If even what was considered evidence of grave sexual sin could be mitigated through cosmetic surgery, or else in other cases through the use of a perfume applied "ad 36Excellent examples of such are portraits of the ruling classes, such as Cosimo de' Medici and Pope Paul III (CAROLI, pp. 52-53). 37COURTINE and HAROCHE, p. 51. 38DELLA PORTA, p. 4 (translation mine). 39CASTIGLIONE, The Book of the Courtier, p. 86 and Il libro del cortegiano, p. 87. 40SANDER L. GILMAN, Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery, Princeton 1999, pp. 49, 66-68 & 62.  Laughran 12 restringendum vulva,"41 how much more did mere topical cosmetics threaten to act as a "mask" of personality? Boccaccio had not minced his words when he warned of this prospect in his Corbaccio by recounting stories of essentially unhealthy women who concocted tremendous amounts of their own cosmetics to project a falsely beautiful complexion, acting as if, he said, "[they] were a prize damsel about to be married, who had to bolster up a small dowry with beauty" ("come se una giovinetta di pregio fosse, alla quale, essendo per maritarsi, convenisse colla bellezza supplire la poca dota"): So well did her skills avail her that this dazzled and deceived not only you but also many others less smitten than you: that is, concerning the freshness of her facial complexion, which, being artificial yet looking like morning roses, was considered natural by many others along with you… [when instead] she had a face green and yellow, discolored with the hue of swamp-fumes, knotted like molting birds, wrinkled and encrusted and all sagging…. If you had seen her, as I saw her most mornings… sitting on her haunches in her lined mantle, brooding over the fire, with livid rings under her eyes, coughing and spitting great gobs of phlegm… you would have thought that you had met up with a load of dung, or a mountain of manure, from which you would have fled, as you do from something disgusting…42 As a result, some, like Boccaccio, clearly feared the prospect of cosmetics being used as a mask to dissimulate complexion. As a result of these attempts to manipulate the Renaissance fashion system through the use of cosmetics, one could no longer be certain with whom he or she was dealing, particularly when that person could be engaged in "self-fashioning" right down to one's own physiognomy. Indeed, in addition to explaining how to create cosmetics which could aid in painting certain features, the sixteenth-century "books of secrets" were filled with recipes for removing or masking natural ones--like birthmarks, freckles, wrinkles and any other potential 41ROSETTI, p. 153. 42BOCCACCIO, The Corbaccio, pp. 41-42 & 53-54 and Il Corbaccio, pp. 94 & 111- 12.Tanto le sue arti valsono che te non solamente, ma molti altri che meno di te erano presi, abbagliò e di sé mise in falsa opinione, cioè della freschezza della carne del viso suo. La quale, essendo artificiata e simile alle mattutine rose parendo, con teco molti altri naturale estimarono… Era costei, e oggi più che mai credo che sia, quando la mattina usciva dal letto col viso verde, giallo, mal tinto, d'un color di fumo di pantano… E se tu, come io lo più delle mattine la vedea… così pantanosa nel viso come ora dissi, e col mantello foderato covare il fuoco, in su le calcagna sedendosi, con l'occhiata livida, e tossire e sputar farfalloni… ti sarebbe paruto che ti si fosse fatto incontro una soma di feccia o un monte di letame; per lo quale saresti, come per le spiacevoli cose si fa, fuggito…  Laughran 13 "identifying marks"--as in Caterina Sforza's recipe to "remove every Sign from the face" (“A levar omne Segnio della faccia”).43 Indeed, when Castiglione would introduce the concept of sprezzatura in his Book of the Courtier, he extended Ovid's principle of ars est celere artem beyond cosmetics to apply to the recommended presentation of the courtier's persona as a whole. Nevertheless, one of the few ways that Castiglione himself was very comfortable with his courtly lady demonstrating the courtier's sprezzatura was precisely through her use of cosmetics: Surely you realize how much more graceful a woman is who, if indeed she wishes to do so, paints herself so sparingly and so little that whoever looks at her is unsure whether she is made-up or not, in comparison with one whose face is so encrusted that she seems to be wearing a mask and who dare not laugh for fear of causing it to crack, and who changes colour only when she dresses in the morning… How much more attractive than all the others is a pretty woman who is quite clearly wearing no make-up on her face, which is neither too pallid nor too red, and whose own colouring is natural and somewhat pale (but who occasionally blushes openly from embarrassment or some other reason)… betraying no effort or anxiety to be beautiful. Such is the uncontrived simplicity which is most attractive to the eyes and minds of man, who are always afraid of being tricked by art..44 It is thus no coincidence that some of the most renowned experts in cosmetics' use during the sixteenth century were actually great signore, like Caterina Sforza of Forlì (1463-1509) and Isabella d'Este of Mantua (1474-1539).45 43CATERINA RIARIO SFORZA, Ricettario di bellezza, ed. Luigi Pescasio, Verona 1971, p. 42. 44CASTIGLIONE, The Book of the Courtier, pp. 86-87 and Il libro del cortegiano, pp. 87-88. Non vi accorgete voi, quanto più di grazia tenga una donna, la qual, se pur si acconcia, lo fa così parcamente e così poco, che chi la vede sta in dubbio s'ella è concia o no, che un'altra, empiastrata tanto, che paia aversi posto alla faccia una maschera, e non osi ridere per non farsela crepare, né si muti mai di colore se non quando la mattina si veste; e poi tutto il remanente del giorno stia come statua di legno immobile, comparendo solamente a lume di torze o, come mostrano i cauti mercanti i lor panni, in loco oscuro? Quanto più poi di tutte piace una, dico, non brutta, che si conosca chiaramente non aver cosa alcuna in su la faccia, benché non sia così bianca né così rossa, ma col suo color nativo pallidetta e talor per vergogna o per altro accidente tinta d'un ingenuo rossore… senza mostrar industria né studio d'esser bella. Questa è quella sprezzata purità gratissima agli occhi ed agli animi umani, i quali sempre temono essere dall'arte ingannati. 45Caterina Sforza's manuscript, Il libro degli "experimenta," contained more than 500 recipes not only for cosmetics, but also--as we have seen was common--for alchemy like "How to create water which will break iron as it if were glass," and what we might today consider the more strictly medicinal, such as plague remedies and, interestingly, "How to make a person sleep so that you may surgically operate as much as you like without it being felt, et est probatum" (E. Sani, "Il 'ricettario di bellezza' di Catherina Sforza," in Minerva farmaceutica 4 [1953], pp. 134-135). Isabella d'Este, on the other hand, was apparently famed as an expert in perfumery who used her creations in the ritualized exchanges of courtly gifts. In return, she seems to have possessed the "secret" for toothwashes, the recipe for which was sent apparently to her by the Queen of Naples. She also developed other  Laughran 14 Naturally, most of the early extant evidence regarding cosmetics' use--and indeed fashion as a whole--reflects the viewpoint of the elite, and therefore tends to create the impression of a fashion system which was directed almost entirely at embodying and communicating these subtle distinctions in social position and status.46 The perception of the elite fashion system that results from the documentation is thus one of cosmetics used as a kind of "physio-" socio-economic indicator, which was supposed to project an elite appearance, biology and psychology, all of which were inextricably bound together in the contemporary conceptualization of complexion. It is unlikely however that the use of such preparations was entirely restricted to the elite, despite the fact that numerous traces of popular usage have not survived. Nevertheless, depictions of medieval peasants have, for example, demonstrated them slinging small boxes of ointment from their belts47 (which, as such preparations are still used, often worked equally well for one's hands and skin as they did for that of one's animals). In the sixteenth century, Rosetti published cosmetic recipes not only for "donne non vulgare" but he also recounted a recipe for "The Components for Beautifying the Face, According to Popular Women," which, oddly enough, involved mercury mixed with spittle, "but all of its effects [should be] damn[ed]," he wrote, since it predictably tended to cause one's teeth and hair to fall out (“De li componimenti di far bello il viso, secondo le donne vulgari… ma ben realmente bestemiare ogni sua attione: di prima fa li denti sporchi, et fetenti, et li fa cadere: ma non solamente li denti ma li capelli ancora…”)48 By the seventeenth century, there is likewise documentation of women who could not afford cipria using the much cheaper, available, and certainly less noxious alternative of oat flour to powder their faces.49 What is more, while some popular proverbs clearly warned against trusting women who used cosmetics ("Turn your back on a made-up woman" ["A donna imbellettata voltagli le spalle"]), others seem to have acknowledged the vulnerability of women when judged by their physical appearance: "Women and cherries are colored to their own detriment" ("Le donne e le ciliegie son colorite per lor proprio danno"),50 claimed one, while--on the other cosmetics, like nail buffers and hair dyes, the latter of which actually functioned more as a kind of "remedy" by--she thought--simply "returning" her hair to its original color (COGNASO, p. 136). 46Ibid., p. 23. 47PIPONNIER and MANE, p. 48. 48ROSETTI, pp. 132 & 78. 49DE SALVIA BALDINI, p. 116. 50MASSIMO BALDINI, Mille Proverbi Italiani, Rome 1996, p. 58. According to James Obelkevich, proverbs were among the most widely used forms of popular oral literature, forming part of a society's "common sense." As such, they are useful to historians of early-modern popular culture since the number of extant proverbs in common use dramatically decreased, rather than increased, after the  Laughran 15 hand--others asserted, "Beauty is [worth] half a dowry"; "She who is born beautiful, is born married"; and "She who is born beautiful is not born poor."51 Thus, while written documentation of early-modern popular cosmetics' usage is extremely rare, a demand seems to have nonetheless existed for preparations which could have enhanced what was considered at the time the standards for physical beauty. sixteenth-century. It can therefore be assumed that many of the proverbs still in use in the nineteenth- century, when the most of the foundational Italian compendia of proverbs were compiled, were not recent inventions but instead likely originated from the heyday of proverbs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (JAMES OBELKEVICH, "Proverbs and Social History," in The Social History of Language, ed. Peter Burke, Cambridge 1987, pp. 44-45 & 56-57). 51 "Bellezza è mezza dote"; "Chi nasce bella, nasce maritata"; "Chi nasce bella non nasce povera" (EMANUEL STRAUS, ed., Dictionary of European Proverbs, vol. 1, London 1994, p. 120 [translation mine]).