I VRCAR.VM 1MPKR.ATOR NOS QVOCD'E 

 VESTIBVS DONAVIT. 



Figure 4. — Sigmund von Herberstein in robes 

 presented to ambassadors by the Sultan, 1541. The 

 Turkish gown of yellow silk figured with black, 

 with some of the medallions outlined in blue, has 

 long sleeves that hide the hands. The inner robe 

 is of red silk figured with yellow and gathered with 

 a blue sash. From Gralae Pnsliiitati. 1560. (Cour- 

 tesy of British Museum, IjiiuJon.) 



Von Herberstein seems to have kept his robes in 

 his palace in Vienna, along with his collection of 

 Russian and oriental weapons, illustrated in his 

 history of Russia: '" these, and stuffed specimens of 

 Aurochs, then almost e.xtinct, and European bison, 

 formed the first museum of costume and natural 

 history on record. 



With the development of ceremonial, some of the 

 jjrincely courts of Germany had illustrations prepared 

 of what should be worn by the officials of different 

 grades (fig. 5). Several copies of each of these 

 Hojkleiderbiicher — books giving rules or standards for 

 correct court dress — were no doubt issued, but none 

 seems to have been printed for the general information 

 of the public. The first printed book on tailoring, by 

 Juan de Alcega, was published in 1588 and includes 

 diagrams showing how to cut ceremonial robes from 

 the roll of cloth," but there are no illustrations of 

 what the completed garments should look like. 



The history of fashion plates, therefore, is to be 

 followed in less specialized works. In the 16th cen- 

 tury, with the improvement of communications and 

 the continuation of voyages of discovery, great interest 

 developed in the costinne and way of life of other 

 nations. It is in this connection that the word 

 "fashion" was first used in its modern sense. In an 

 address to King Henry VIII, a petitioner in 1529, 

 deploring the sinfulness of the people of England, 

 wrote: '^ 



The pryncypall cause [of sin] is their costly apparell 

 and specially their manyfolde and divers changes of 

 fasshyons which the men and specially the women must 

 weare uppon both heddc and bodye: sometyme cappe, 

 somctyme hoodc, now the French fasshyon now the 

 Spanyshc fasshyon and then the Italyan fasshyon and 

 the Myllen [Milan] fasshyon, so that there is noo ende 

 of consuminge of substance .... 



Foreign fashions were being imitated by English 

 ladies. Inventories '^ in the Public Record Ofhcc in 

 London show that the English queens had robes cut in 



in bowing low enough to kiss the hand of the seated 

 Sultan. The imperial fashion of breeches and hose 

 might have seemed indelicate to Suleiman "the 

 Magnificant," who gave the ambassadors other robes 

 (fig. 4) : "The Emperor of the Turks presented us also 

 with these robes." The long-gowned costume shown 

 here should have been completed by a turban, but 

 von Herberstein evidently would not allow himself 

 to be depicted in this. 



1" .Sigmund von Herberstetn, Rerum Moscovilicarum Cnmmen- 

 tarii, expanded ed. (Basel: Oporinus, 1556). 



11 Juan de Alcega, Libra di geomelria y traca (1589). See also. 

 Tailor and cutter (London, 1933), no. 68. A copy of the 1588 

 edition was acquired by the Folger Shakespeare Library, 

 Washington, D.C., in 1964. 



12 "Supplication to the King." Printed by the Early English 

 Text Society, extra ser. ( 1871 ), p. 52. 



13 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vol. 1 (2), on. 3326. 



70 



BULLETIN 2 50 : CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



