LUCREZIA BORGIA, ITALY
Fair warning to you all, now that The Borgias has started on Showtime I’ll probably be rediscovering my love for Italian Renaissance history. I’ve done a few before, Catherine Medici is around here somewhere but anyway, I digress. The Borgia family is notorious for their corruption and power plays in Rome during the late 1400’s. The patriarch of the family famously bought his Papal throne at the Vatican and played his family accordingly. Of course, for any young woman in a powerful family was used as a token of alliance by marriage. Enter Lucrezia Borgia who married into another powerful Catholic family and then another and then another, all surrounded by a little mystery. There are very few surviving portraits of the Borgia heiress but she was allegedly quite beautiful, cunning and at one time as corrupt as the rest of her family. Although, as she became older and raised her children her image did clean up a bit. But I dare to say she was far from angelic. By today’s standards she’d be you know, totally normal. Not sure why I put her in all black but damn she fine.
1. “I don’t think my father, the guardian of the Catholic faith, would be too pleased to hear about this”
Dress by Alberta Feretti, shoes by Bottega Veneta
2. “You know who’s looking fine tonight?” “Cesare Borgia” “Okay, you did not just say that, he is your brother” “What? He’s a good kisser.”
Dress by Emilio Pucci, coat by Fendi, shoes by Lanvin
3. “She has two painted portraits and a silver carriage”
Dress by Versace, shoes by Gucci
Weird how relevant Mean Girls is to her. Ha.
fanny price from mansfield park
i know you all love a good jane austen book, so let’s move on to mansfield park shall we? it’s pretty typical of austen’s work, love stories gone haywire and a happy-ish ending all set in an idyllic english setting. mansfield park focuses on young fanny price. fanny is from a poor family and she’s sent to live with her rich cousins, the bertrams at mansfield park. because of her background, all her cousins but edmund mistreat her. naturally (should i say ausently?), she falls in love with him. it’s not until her uncle thomas leaves to take care of his plantation that things start to get crazy. these kids, the crawfords show up and start being all fun and fashionable. basically, they all toy with each other’s emotions until fanny and edmund finally realize their incestuous love. okay, there’s more to it (including some juicy scandals) than that but just read it. i’m tired.
1: i’m just a poor girl from a poor family (oh mama mia mama mia mama mia let me go!): coat by burberry prorsum, dress by marc jacobs, shoes by stella mccartney…maybe she isn’t so poor…
2: “yah but he’s my first cousin”: coat by oscar de la renta, dress (you can barely see) dries van noten, shoes by bottega veneta
3: “it’s called incest arlene and it’s against the law” imagine this is her wedding getup: dress by anna sui, shoes by marc jacobs
oh hey now hey now, it’s tumblr tuesday…would you like to recommend textbook?
All images from Style.com.
