My Venetian Women's Suit of Ruffs

Unlike the ruffs seen in France, England and some other parts of Europe of the 16th century, Venetian women wore ruffs at the shoulder. This was seen no where else at that time. The Venetians also rejected the ' head on a plate' look so often thought of when you mention ruffs, in favour of a ruff that framed the face rather than severing the head.

Small ruffs, or ruffles, as part of partlets are seen from the mid sixteenth century. Additionally the ruffled partlets were seen worn with the sleeves sporting the lantern style tops. The larger more impressive ruffs, both falling and standing, and in particular, the shoulder ruffs, did not appear in the Venetian dress code until the later sixteenth century. The shoulder ruff was not a part of the ensemble of the smaller ruffle attached to the partlet. The early 1570s appears from all visual evidence, to be the start date for this fashion to be taken up by the Venetians. Smaller ruffs or collars were seen previously as part of partlets. These smaller ruffs may have provided supports for the larger ruffs when they cam into fashion.

Palmal il Giovane: The Arrival of Henry III at Palazzo Foscare. Late C16

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemaldegaleris Altemeister. Detail

In the image below of my lovely apprentice, Lady Agnita, her standing ruff is supported by a smaller ruff that is attached to the partlet. It should also be noted that while this is a stunning display of a suit of Venetian Ruffs, it can not be documented that they were worn in this fashion. That being, no lace edging, beaded, and especially not worn with a set of sleeves that had the 'lantern' style sleeve tops.

The methods of construction, I would say were pretty much the same as elsewhere at the time.


Palmal il Giovane: The Arrival of Henry III at Palazzo Foscare. Late C16 Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemaldegaleris Altemeister. Detail	Lady Agnita, her standing ruff is supported by a smaller ruff that is attached to the partlet.

Small ruff attached directly to partlet that acts as a propper for a larger ruff.	The Venetian Ball by Hendrik Goltzius, circa 1584, detail, shows a rare back view of a double ruff. The smaller one on the bottom, possibly part of a partlet, props up the top, larger one.

Silk Organza. Light gauzy fabrics were known to be used in the production of ruffs. Italy, and in particular Venice, had its own sericulture. Silk Organza was known and used at the time for other purposes, therefore is it not unreasonable to expect that Venetians used this luxury fabric for the production of their ruffs. While cotton was known to Venice, as it was produced in Sicily, and could have been used, I tend toward linen and silk as best fabrics for the purpose and time.

A section of the ruff before pleating, showing silk organza band, double thickness, with the lace attached and wire stitched into place.

Wire. I have incorporated wire in the edge of the ruff to help maintain its form. Wire of varying gauges was produced at the time. Suportase, a stand propped under the ruff but separate from the ruff was known and made of wire. I was not intending to use a suportase for these ruffs and experimented with the wiring of the ruff itself. I am unsure that this was a practice used in the sixteenth century, but it worked a treat.

Cotton Lace. At this time I did not have access to the more appropriate styles of laces that reproduce the exact patterns seen in sixteenth century Venice. I was however, able to buy some lovely cotton point laces that gave the impression of point laces seen at the time.

The neck and shoulder ruffs are generally worn as a set, seldom as separates, except for informal occasions like around the house, or when wearing an outer garment such as a loose gown.

A partlet of silk organza would be most appropriate to wear with a set of ruffs, or a lace partlet with all lace ruffs.

Ruffs were worn with both the open front and closed front styles seen in Venice. Most commonly seen with the closed fronted style of dress, but not unheard of with the open V front dress that was quintessentially Venetian.

The large standing ruffs are mostly seen with closed fronted Venetian gowns. There are some cases of them being worn with the V front gown also, but these are in the minority.

The line of the ruff and the partlet on a closed front Venetian gown forms a teardrop shape framing the head and face.

Beads of any description do not appear to be part of the embellishment on Venetian ruffs.

Standing ruffs can be either of the same height all around, or tapered toward the leading edge.

Sleeves on the dresses worn with shoulder ruffs are full sleeves. By that I mean that they did not have the lovely lantern style tops seen on many Venetian dresses. From pictorial evidence we can deduce that the pattern for these sleeves were relatively fitted at the wrist and the armhole, but loose at the elbow.

Historically ruffs were made of very fine linen or lawn. Late C16 silk organza was also used. Also in the very late C16 more lace formed part of the Venetian ruff so that in some cases all of the seen ruff was indeed lace.

The height of neck ruffs ranged from just below the earlobe to being visible above the crown of the head.

It is interesting also to note that nothing more than the smaller ruff attached to a partlet is ever seen in the artworks of the big three of C16 Venetian art. Those being Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto.

NB: A ruff attached to a partlet is a separate concern to a standing ruff. These are seen sans shoulder ruffs.

All intellectual content, composition, layout, designs and photographs copyright 2007 to Deborah Lane © , 2003 to Deborah Murray © or Mistress Oonagh O'Neill ©. All Original renaissance art works and artefacts are not copyright to Deborah Lane, and are shown for educational use only. If you see something you'd really like to use, please contact me!



Instructions from 'le Pompe 1559, Pattern for Venetian Bobbin Lace'	Instructions and lace from 'le Pompe 1559, Pattern for Venetian Bobbin Lace'

Linen, with cutwork and bobbin lace, Italy, Victoria and Albert Museum, London	Linen, needle lace, punto tela and punto treccia Italy 228.5 cm Long 14 cm Deep. Museo Correr, Venice

My Ruffs in progress. Gathering so that the points of the lace are the guides for stitching, then gathering into a band.

A Neck ruff in a rush. After pining all the pleats into place, it was possible to machine them into the band. Well for one side. I couldn't allow machine stitching for the finish.

My standing ruff pinned into the partlet.

My Full Ruffs worn with a gown.


	Portrait of a Woman Seated, Domenico Tintoretto, late 16th century. Location unknown