160 EXAMINATION of an HISTORICAL HYPOTHESIS 



A thoufand inftances of the fame kind might be given, to ihew, 

 that this criticifm of the author of the Memoires on the words 

 mulier ■, foemina , donna and madonna , has no folid foundation. 



2^<?, The author of the Memoires, when he fays that, in the 

 age of Petrarch, the unmarried women were always fimply 

 drafted, and that the ufe of garlands, of pearls, and of jewels, 

 was peculiar only to fuch as were married, aflumes a facl: of 

 which there is no evidence. Muratori, in his twenty-fifth 

 differtation on the drefs of the middle ages, proves, that in the 

 north of Italy, about the time of Petrarch, the drefs of the 

 women was remarkably fplendid ; and he makes no difhindtion 

 between the drefs of the married, and of the unmarried women. 

 He quotes a monk, Galvaneus, who, inveighing againft the lux- 

 ury of the times, fays : " Mulieres fimiliter in pejus omnia mu- 

 " taverunt. Ipfse namque ftragulatis veftibus, fcopato gut- 

 " ture et collo redimitae fibulis aureis, gyrovagantur. Sericis 

 " et interdum aureis indumentis veftiuntur. Crinibus crifpatis 

 " more alienigenarum capite perftringuntur. Zonis aureis fu- 

 " percinctae, Amazones efTe videntur." Murat. Antiq. Ital. 

 torn. ii. p. 417. — If fuch was the fplendid attire of the women 

 in the north of Italy, the Court, at Avignon importing thenGe 

 both its manners and its famions, would not, it is probable, be 

 behind their models in drefs, as in every other fpecies of luxury. 

 We have the authority of the Abbe de Sade himfelf for affirm- 

 ing, that, under the pontificate of Clement VI., the drefs of 

 the women at the Court of Avignon was fplendid and luxurious 

 in the extreme, [Mem de Pet. torn. ii. p. 92.) ; and that this af- 

 fectation had reached even the lower clafles, appears from a 

 proclamation, which it was found neceffary a fhort time after- 

 wards to ifTue, prohibiting the ufe of gold, fllver, ermines or 

 filk, in apparel, to all women, unlefs the relations of the Pope, 

 the wives and daughters of the Lord Marefchal and Lord Vicar, 



g the 



