unstinted, unmeasured; woman capable of serving beyond her
strength, rising to her greatest height, bending, but not breaking to
the end, if only assured she is _needed_.

CHAPTER XVII

THE RENAISSANCE

_Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries_

The marked departure is necks cut square, if low, and elaborate jewelled
chains draped from shoulders, outlining neck of gown and describing a
festoon on front of waist, which is soon to become independent of skirt
to develop on its own account.

As in the fifteenth century, when necks were cut low off the shoulders,
they were on occasions filled in with tuckers.

The skirt now registers a new characteristic; it parts at the waist line
over a petticoat, and the opening is decorated by the ornamental, heavy
chain which hangs from girdle to hem of gown.

One sees the hair still worn coiled low in the neck, concealing the ears
and held in a snood or in Italy cut "Florentine" fashion with fringe on
brow.

Observe how the wealth of the Roman Empire, through its new trade
channels opening up with the East (the result of the crusades) led to
the importation of rich and many-coloured Oriental stuffs; the same
wealth ultimately established looms in Italy for making silks and
velvets, to decorate man and his home. There was no longer simplicity in
line and colour scheme; gorgeous apparel fills the frames of the
Renaissance and makes amusing reading for those who consult old
documents. The clothes of man, like his over-ornate furniture, show a
debauched and vulgar taste. Instead of the lines which follow one
another, solid colours, and trimmings kept to hem of neck and sleeve and
skirt, great designs, in satins and velvet brocades, distort the lines
and proportions of man and woman.

The good Gothic lines lived on in the costumes of priests and nuns.

Jewelry ceased to be decoration with meaning; lace and fringe, tassels
and embroidery, with colour combinations to rival the African parrots,
disfigured man and woman alike.

During November of 1916, New York was so fortunate as to see, at the
American Art Galleries, the great collection of late Gothic and early
Renaissance furniture and other art treasures, brought together in the
restored Davanzati Palace of Florence, Italy. The collection was sold at
auction, and is now scattered. Of course those who saw it in its natural
setting in Florence, were most fortunate of all. But with some knowledge
and imagination, at the sigh