Drachenwald Arts Challenge: Bonus round - document a thing you already own.

Meet Lorenzo. He is my Bling Rat zibellino

What. The heck. Is this?

Zibellino. The word itself, zibellino (pl. zibellini) comes from the Italian word for sable but has been broadly applied to other fur varieties, as well. Renaissance portraits abound with images of people wearing or holding dead mustelidae - typically marten or sable (but could be anything classified as an 'expensive' fur, like ermine).

Such as this one:

Portrait of angelica Agliardi di Nicolini
Giovanni Moroni, C. 1560 

And this one: 

Portrait of a Lady
Bernardino Luini, 1520-1525

Aaaaaand this one: 

Contessa Isotta Brembati Grumelli
Givanni Paolo Lolmo, 1570-1575

Perhaps they started humbly as just an empty, furry shell, but as the trend picked up steam people couldn't leave well enough alone, having jewellers turning gold and gemstones into wee heads and feet. 

Like this lil' guy:

Gold with enamel, rubies, garnets and pearls
Umbria, Italy, c. 1550-1559

And this other lil' guy:

Portrait of an unknown lady
William Segar (attrib.), c. 1595

Why on Earth...?

A 19th century scholar, Wendelin Boeheim, suggested that they were worn to attract fleas off of the body of the person carrying it. This has been pretty thoroughly debunked, (along with nearly every other wacky Victorian theory about history, but that's a subject for another post), and historians now suppose that they're likely just...a useless, expensive thing people - mostly women - wore to advertise that they had money to burn on useless, expensive things. There is also a line of thinking that they show up in portraiture to symbolise fertility or pregnancy, or were an amulet for those things, but no one's really sure of anything beyond their mere existence. 

Who would do such a thing? And where? And when?

Rumour has it that this rather macabre fashion began in Northern Italy by the d'Este sisters in the late 15th century, and quickly trended across Europe, showing up in the inventories of everyone from Charles of Burgundy to Queen Elizabeth I - even Isabella de Medici and her daughter had a few. They showed up in dowries, were given as gifts, and were popular enough to merit a mention in the sumptuary laws of several Italian cities.

"...fur was still a high-status item that was often used to make linings, trimmings for gowns, sleeves, and hoods, as well as fur accessories such as the zibellino (a fur tippet worn by women in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries). They were often given by men to their wives, such as the sumptuous sable Henry VIII gave to Catherine Howard." - Maria Hayward, A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Renaissance

By the early 17th century the fad had burnt out, but managed to have a bit of a weird revival in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

So, how did I make Lorenzo?

It started with the gift of two mink stoles and a bag of their tails and feet, some random fancy gold ribbon trim, and a bunch of gemstone beads. It was really pretty straightforward, after that. I wrapped a bit of ribbon around his snout, another bit around his neck, and connected the two with a piece that went up the middle of his face and over his head. I added amethyst, garnet, and aventurine beads, and a chain with a clip so I could drape him dramatically about my person without losing him. (And then I had to make a fancier dress to wear with him, but such is the way with excellent accessories.)

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Resources:

• Orsini Landini, Robert & Niccoli, Bruna. La Moda a Firenze 1540-1580. Pagliai Polistampa, Firenze, 2005.
• Currie, Elizabeth, Ed. A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Renaissance. Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2021
• Minnell, Nicole. 'Zibellini as Animal-Made-Objects.' Society for Renaissance Studies, 8 Mar 2017, https://www.rensoc.org.uk/2128-2/
• The Walters Art Museum. Marten's Head. https://art.thewalters.org/detail/20181/martens-head/
• 'Zibellini (aka "Flea Furs") in 16th Century Portraits.' Medieval & Renaissance Material Culture: The Linkspages at Larsdatter.com. http://www.larsdatter.com/zibellini.htm