Medeival Ecclesiastical

So yesterday I got to dabble in one more foreign area of renaissance garb for the wedding. The Baptist pastor who is officiating the service is willing, and somewhat excited, to join us in dressing up, as long as whatever he is wearing is not too denotive of Catholicism or Friar Tuck. So....not knowing much about ecclesiastical garb in the first place and not really having the time to do the proper research, I browsed though the male portraits on The Realm of Venus and chose this one, Paolo Veronese's Portrait of Daniele Barbaro 1566.   For one, it looks fairly simple, comfortable and easy for an older gentleman to get in to, and if decorated apropriately, it could be taken for something a Church man might wear.

So off I went to sew. I had four yard of 55 in chocolate brown handkerchief linen and three yards of a medium brown open 'waffle like' weave 60 in wide wool and about four yards of wide vestment trim. As the pastor has very long arms (37 in) and is over 6 foot tall, I mapped out the linen undertunic as best I could, but couldn't nearly get the fullness as seen in the portrait. Its a pretty normal tunic, front/back piece with head hole, sleeves, underarm gussets and side gores. However, I ended up splitting the whole thing down the front, and I need to find appropriate buttons yet for the closure.

For the capelet I deviated again from the portrait. Instead of making the round bottom edge, I left the wool square and long enough so that it will hand well below th belt. I sewed down large soft pleats at the shoulders to help give the garment more body and less droopiness. I then sewed the vestment trim along the bottom edges, front and back. The sides are open. I just need to find an appropriate clasp to fasten the neck opening with and it is done. So really, it doesn't look like the portrait at all....but oh well. it should fit the vision.

I want to yet make the four cornered hat pictured, but I think that will wait for 'hatmaking day' when I need to make several hats for the several of the men in the party.

I'm going to go try to take pictures of the whole thing now, not sure how it will go down as I have no model and the whole thing is pretty shapeless.