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With this vivid account of fifteenth-century fashion, McCall has given us thrilling new ways to interpret the politics, gender posturing, and art of Renaissance Italy. Bringing new light to such well-known historical figures and events-and from such a surprising angle and with so much delicacy in the details of the prose-is what makes Brilliant Bodies a remarkable achievement. -Emanuele Lugli, author of Unita di misura: Breve storia del metro in Italia

With this vivid account of fifteenth-century fashion, McCall has given us thrilling new ways to interpret the politics, gender posturing, and art of Renaissance Italy. Bringing new light to such well-known historical figures and events-and from such a surprising angle and with so much delicacy in the details of the prose-is what makes Brilliant Bodies a remarkable achievement. -Emanuele Lugli, author of The Making of Measure and the Promise of Sameness Readers who worry that McCall's book might be an academic affair directed toward art historians, costume scholars, archivists, and other specialists need not fear: the chapters are beautifully illustrated, the writing is accessible, the argument is clearly developed with a critical eye toward current debates on gender, identity, and the symbolic valorization of whiteness, or 'brilliance,' in the courts of early Renaissance Europe, where aristocratic men and women regularly bleached their hair blond, powdered their hands and faces white, and embellished their clothing with shimmering metallic threads and gems that made their bodies glow like the sun. -Maria H. Loh, Art in America

With this vivid account of fifteenth-century fashion, McCall has given us thrilling new ways to interpret the politics, gender posturing, and art of Renaissance Italy. Bringing new light to such well-known historical figures and events-and from such a surprising angle and with so much delicacy in the details of the prose-is what makes Brilliant Bodies a remarkable achievement. -Emanuele Lugli, author of The Making of Measure and the Promise of Sameness

With this vivid account of fifteenth-century fashion, McCall has given us thrilling new ways to interpret the politics, gender posturing, and art of Renaissance Italy. Bringing new light to such well-known historical figures and events-and from such a surprising angle and with so much delicacy in the details of the prose-is what makes Brilliant Bodies a remarkable achievement. -Emanuele Lugli, author of The Making of Measure and the Promise of Sameness Readers who worry that McCall's book might be an academic affair directed toward art historians, costume scholars, archivists, and other specialists need not fear: the chapters are beautifully illustrated, the writing is accessible, the argument is clearly developed with a critical eye toward current debates on gender, identity, and the symbolic valorization of whiteness, or 'brilliance,' in the courts of early Renaissance Europe, where aristocratic men and women regularly bleached their hair blond, powdered their hands and faces white, and embellished their clothing with shimmering metallic threads and gems that made their bodies glow like the sun. -Maria H. Loh, Art in America Readers who worry that McCall's book might be an academic affair directed toward art historians, costume scholars, archivists, and other specialists need not fear: the chapters are beautifully illustrated, the writing is accessible, the argument is clearly developed with a critical eye toward current debates on gender, identity, and the symbolic valorization of whiteness. -Maria H. Loh, Art in America

Author Information

Timothy McCall is Associate Professor of Art History at Villanova University. He is a coeditor of Visual Cultures of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe and the forthcoming six-volume series A Cultural History of Luxury.

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