notably
in 1334, 1340, 1360, 1497, and 1562. These differed in many particulars
: some forbade ornaments or trimmings of pearls, gold, or silver on the
dresses of any women except a member of the Doge's family ; and other
enactments required that, after a definite period of married life, no
woman should be permitted to wear pearls of any kind. But an
examination of the documents and of the paintings of that period shows
that these decrees had little effect, and the luxury of the "Queen of
the Adriatic" in the use of pearls at the most brilliant epoch in her
history is aptly reproduced in the portraits by Giovanni Bellini,
Lorenzo Lotto, the great Titian, Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, and other
artists of the highest rank. In the engraving by Hendrik Goltzius of a
marriage at Venice in 1584, not one of the many women present seems to
be without her necklace and earrings of pearls, and some of them have
several necklaces.1 And the same appears true of the
principal female figures in Jost Amman's noted engraving, "The
Espousal of the Sea," executed in 1565.2
As
preservation of the republic became more difficult with declining
resources and with the continued growth of dazzling splendor, a
resolution in the Senate, dated July 8, 1599, set forth that "the use
and price of pearls has become so excessive and increases to such an
extent from day to day, that if some remedy is not provided, it will
cause injury, disorders, and notable inconvenience to public and
private well-being, as each one of this council in his wisdom can very
easily appreciate." And then it was enacted: "That, without repealing
the other regulations which absolutely prohibit the wearing of pearls,
it shall be expressly enjoined that any woman, whether of noble birth
or a simple citizen, or of any other condition, who shall reside in
this our city for one year (except her Serenity the Dogaressa and her
daughters and her daughters-in-law who live in the palace), after the
expiration of fifteen years from the day of her first marriage, shall
lay aside the string of pearls around her neck and shall not wear or
use, either upon her neck or upon any other part of her person, this
string or any other kind of pearls or anything which imitates pearls,
neither in this city nor in any other city or place within our
dominion, under the irrémissible penalty of two hundred ducats."
And yet ten years later, on May 5, 1609, another law enacted in the Senate stated :
Although
in the year 1599 this council decided with great wisdom that married
women should be permitted to wear pearls for only fifteen years after
their first marriage, nevertheless it is very evident that the desired
end has not been attained, and the extravagance has continued up to the
present time
!See Yriarte, "Venice," Paris, 1878, p. 236. 2Ibid., pp. 252, 253.
