Baumann 1

Anna Baumann
TA: Lane Eagles
ART H 260A
October 18, 2016

How the Decameron by Boccaccio Forms Griseldas Identity and Fashions her According to
Jones and Stallybrass

Renaissance Clothing and the Material of Memory by Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter

Stallybrass illustrates how fashion was viewed in the Medieval and Renaissance times. The

story of Griselda in the Decameron, written in 1353, shows us an example of how clothes

can fashion, can make, a person into something different. Griseldas public identity was

formed by the clothing she wore, according to the power fashion and clothing had during

the Medieval times, yet her private identity was mostly independent from her clothing.

Fashion, fetishism, and memory in early modern England and Europe is the

introduction to the Jones and Stallybrass book, Renaissance Clothing and the Material of

Memory. This introduction discusses how the idea of fashion has changed throughout time.

In the Medieval times, fashion was defined as to make something, to fashion someone was

to make them wholly different on the inside and the outside. Clothing during this time were

seen as material memories which could effect our whole identities and emotions. We can

see this in Henry IV, for example, when a king does not become a king until he goes through

coronation and receives his crown.1 Our modern view of clothing and personality was not

known yet. Medieval people were tied to their rank and social class, and therefore also their

clothing.

Yet, with the start of the renaissance, a shift occurred. Now, to believe that fashion

changed a person so fundamentally, and that it had such a great influence was seen as

1 Ann Rosalind Jones, Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory
(Cambridge University Press, 2000), Introduction.
 Baumann 2

fetishizing. This change in attitude towards clothing occurred because White colonizers

wanted to sell precious stones and artifacts found in Africa, but they could not do this until

the heathen identity of these goods was disassociated with the objects themselves. No one

would buy a necklace if a heathen had worn it, unless this fact became unimportant. 2 This

shift in fashion, from making someone to representing change, led to an increased variety of

fashions and the start of clothing to express ones own personality. 3 Our modern ideas about

fashion began to become prominent. Fashion was seen as change and changeable. It no

longer defined who you were and you could start building individual personalities not tied

to specific clothing. Taking into account these views, Griselda, set during Medieval times,

should be fashioned by the clothes she wears, she should be completely changed into a

different person.

Before we investigate Griselda further, it is important to define the word identity.

Identity is usually defined as who/what you are. I believe that Griselda, through the very

unusual circumstances of her biography (changing castes so drastically), had two very

prominent identities. One being public, and one being private. Her public identity would be

completely defined by clothing and her social rank. It would be who she was. Yet her private

identity would be how she feels, and who she perceives herself to be. While these were very

related, they were not always the same.

Indeed I do think we see Griselda changing through her clothes in the Decameron.

She cannot become Gualtieris wife until she publicly rids herself of her peasant clothes and

puts on her noble robes.4 Where she to remain in her rags and return to his house, she

2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron (Penguin Books, 2003), Tenth Day, Tenth Story.
 Baumann 3

would bring the poverty and unsuitability tied to these clothes with her to her new home.

With this change in clothing, she transforms from an insignificant peasant to a lady and a

wife in the eyes of society. Her public identity can only change when her clothes do. And

again, when her husband commands her to remove her formal clothes and leave only with a

shift, she transforms back into a peasant and is no longer seen as his wife. 5 She is stripped

of her title and becomes just like she was before her marriage. Yet there is more complexity

to this story than that.

The Medieval system of fashion did not take into account individual traits or

personalities, but Boccaccio did. The idea that we are our own, unique people, different

from everyone else, is very recent. While fashion changes Griseldas social status, and

therefore her formal identity, the removal of her clothing does not change her personal

characteristics and manners. When her husband castes her out, she accepts this, being used

to act in the obedience of a peasant, and says that she never felt worthy of being his wife in

the first place.6 If clothes truly were as transformative as the Medieval times made them

seem, she should have been a lady through and through simply because she wore the garb

of one.

Yet she continued to embody some of the ladylike traits, even when she went back to

being a peasant. While greeting her husbands guests as a peasant, she was said to have

done this in the warm manner of a lady. When changing back to her noble clothing after her

husband takes her back, it is said that, even in her rags, the role of lady and mistress

seemed to be hers because of the way she acted.7 This shows us that the changes she went

5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
 Baumann 4

through while living as her husbands wife and as a noble lady for years were not removed

from her simply because her clothes were. The things she learned and changes she

underwent stayed with her even when she went back to being a peasant. Boccaccio seemed

to be foreshadowing the shift in thinking that would occur later on in history. While

publicly clothing fashioned her, the way how her manner and values, her private identity,

were formed and transformed was also due to her personality and the individual choices

she made or how she reacted to circumstances.

Griselda grew up in this story. She goes from being a lowly teenaged peasant to a

lady. Of course, during her more than 10 years of marriage, she will learn how to be a noble

woman, how to act, walk, talk and command. Her new clothing may give her the confidence

she needs to learn how to be a lady, but it does not do the learning for her. Her identity will

change dramatically. While her clothing instilled her with status the minute she put that

first fancy dress on, in reality, learning to be a lady would have taken her time. With the

reduced power we place on clothing now, it is obvious to us that the removal of her clothing

would not result in a spontaneous change of her identity, but in Medieval times this was

very much the status quo. While she may still have the characteristics of a lady inside and

still have her identity shaped by the last decade of living as one, when Griselda was

returned to her father, she needed to put on her old clothes and go back to being a peasant

through and through. No matter how she felt, her public identity changed immediately.

The Francesco di Stefano portrayal of the Griselda story, painted in 1450, illustrates

the power of fashion.i Most of the painting shows Gualtieri riding towards his bride, but the

far right side of the image shows their wedding. This scene is often described as being very

accurate to the original story, portraying a naked Griselda with the unkempt hair of a
 Baumann 5

peasant and a humble demeanour, almost seeming to shy away from her new husband. 8

This painting illustrates the fact that, while she is marrying a lord, she is still a peasant and

has yet to be transformed. Her public and private identities are both in shift. She has

already been stripped of her old life and title, seeing as she is naked, and is waiting to be

fully immersed in her new one by putting on the gown of a lady. Her public identity will

change immediately after her wedding, while her private identity will take time to shift as

she grows comfortable with her new role.

Another painting which depicts the influence of fashion is the Apollonio di Giovanni

painting of Griselda, painted in 1460.ii This picture shows a much more put-together

Griselda, with carefully pleated hair, a covering and a crown, being pushed towards her new

husband by a group of female townswomen. It was based on the Petrarch rewrite of the

story, where she is not stripped naked publicly, as to better fit with the morals of the time. 9

Boccaccio wrote a strikingly problematic story for the time, one as popular as it was

scandalous. This new rewrite explicitly stated that she had to be changed so that she did

not bring a trace of her former station into her new one in life. 10 She is transformed and

fashioned by her clothing publicly through the wedding. This, again, illustrates how her

public identity shifts with her clothing, while her private identity does not.

The Master of the Story of Griselda spalliera paintings, painted in 1494, also

illustrate her identity shifts.iii In the painting of her divorce, she is shown as shedding her

fine clothes and walking away in a shift to signalize her change back in status, her change in

8 S. Gaylard, What is the relationship between people and their stuff? (Lecture, University
of Washington, Seattle, Seattle, WA, October 6, 2016).
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
 Baumann 6

public identity.11 Privately, she must still feel like a lady, but publicly she no longer is one.

Yet in the painting of the wedding feast, she is also shown to welcome her former

husbands guests with grace, to converse with them, and even to sit at the table with her

husband, all whilst still in her peasant clothing. This illustrates that her private identity, her

personality, and her mannerisms were still that of a lady regardless of her clothing, and that

this was noted by her husbands guests at the feast.

The story of Griselda is definitely one of being fashioned by different types of

clothing and changing identities. Her public identity changes according to which clothing

she wears and it defines her in the eyes of society. The change of her private identity was

not facilitated instantaneously through fashion, therefore she neither became a true lady on

the day of her wedding, nor did she return to being a peasant on the day of her divorce.

Even while she was sweeping the floors of her husbands home after her divorce, she still

commanded the respect of Gualtieris subjects, alluding to the fact that clothing may not be

as important in her case as it should have been at this time. Clothing should have

permeated the wearer and fashioned them within, as stated in the Jones and Stallybrass

reading.12 But, in terms of Griseldas private identity, this is simply not the case.

Griselda goes through a great many struggles in this story. Her public identity shifts

much more often than was the custom of the time, and her private identity needs to catch

up. She is portrayed as a gentle, generous, good woman who becomes, through her

marriage, a true lady. Her public identity is fashioned entirely through her clothing, yet her

private identity stems from her individual growth.

11 Ibid.
12 Ann Rosalind Jones, Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory
(Cambridge University Press, 2000), Introduction.
i Fran
cesco di Stefano (Pesellino), Griselda story (cassone painting) Tuscany c1450 (Bergamo,
Accademia Carrara).
ii

Apollonio di Giovanni, Griselda, detail, cassone painting c 1460.

iii
 Master of the
Story of Griselda, spalliera painting, c. 1494 (London, National Gallery).

Works Cited
Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. Penguin Books: 2003.

Jones, Ann Rosalind, Stallybrass. Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory.

Cambridge University Press: 2000.

Gaylard, S. What is the relationship between people and their stuff? Lecture at the

University of Washington, Seattle, Seattle, WA, October 6, 2016.