Greek info anyone?
Naomi Gayle Rivkis
for a Greek persona from the Byzantine period. (When and where exactly
depends a lot on what I can find!) Problem: nobody knows a durn thing
about Greece between the fall of Rome and the Turkish conquest. :P Can
anyone help me? Costume information with pictures would be especially
welcome. I can do Byzantine costuming as well, since there was a great
deal of crossover. So far I've scoured web sites and found very little
in the way of Byzantine costume information; it all seems to be
Italian or further west. Please advise?
In service,
Phaedra Milona
mariannep
Well, the "History of Costume" vol. 1 by M. Davenport has a section on
byzantine costume. I think it also has a part on classical times so it may
have a tiny bit of stuff for in between. It's out of print AFAIK
but I believe many libraries have it. It could fall under the general arts,
theatrical costuming or history categories.
It has b&w pictures and some text which may or may not be helpful.
It definitely does not have patterns, just info about what people wore from
the available sources.
If you have trouble finding it let me know. I can check for you the
extent of the info so you can decide whether to look further afield
for it.
Hope this helps!
Marianne
Kensei
Naomi Gayle Rivkis <nri...@concentric.net> wrote in message
news:38c3fd3b...@news.cris.com...
> I'm just starting out and working on historical research and costuming
> for a Greek persona from the Byzantine period. (When and where exactly
> depends a lot on what I can find!) Problem: nobody knows a durn thing
> about Greece between the fall of Rome and the Turkish conquest. :P Can
> anyone help me? Costume information with pictures would be especially
> welcome. I can do Byzantine costuming as well, since there was a great
> deal of crossover. So far I've scoured web sites and found very little
> in the way of Byzantine costume information; it all seems to be
> Italian or further west. Please advise?
>
> In service,
>
> Phaedra Milona
>
Semi-circular long cloaks often shown in art. Occasionally the chlamys is
shown in art - whether that's actually contemporary or a throw-back to
classical models I don't know - I'm no expert on this era.
MS Coislin 79 fo 2v in the Biblioteque National Paris shows Nicephorus III
Botaites in 1078 wearing a tightly patterned overtunic, floor length, slit
nearly to knees at sides and front with wide gold banding at hem and slit;
belted at waist. He has a diamond-shaped trimmed very short tabard-like
garment reaching only to mid chest, two pearl necklaces, and a hat trimmed
with jewels shaped rather like a pill-box. Archangel michael in the same
painting has a blue floor-length tunic, belted, and a full semi-circular
cloak worn to expose the right arm and cover the left arm.
Mosaic of Justinian and attendants c 547 S. Vitale, Ravenna shows Justinian
in alb with ankle-length semi-circular cloak pinned at right shoulder,
leaving right arm free, left covered; several attendants have albs with wide
sleeves, stripes at hem of sleeve, and chasuble extending to floor but only
as wide as shoulders; others wear cloaks. Matching mosaic of Theodora shows
her in similar cloak with heavily jeweled headdress and broad nec klace. Her
female attendants wear dark brown tunic with vertical panels of gold
embroidered with a floral motif; they wear a full patterned chasuble but
gather it up in the front over their arms. Head dress matches the chasuble.
(colorplate 14 in Jansen's History of Art 1069 rev).
fortune,
Sithech macCaerill