There are many sites just full of links for members of the Society for Creative Anachronism; this is another one. I was tired of trying (and failing) to keep these all organized on my browser bookmarks. This way, too, I can add notes and categories easier. I have a second page for SCA camping resources here.

If you happen to find a broken link below PLEASE let me know. I know how disheartening it is to find an amazing SCA links website with a title of a link that is absolutely perfect for your needs only to click on it and realize that the website hasn’t been updated since 1998 and the pages no longer exist because people have let their domains expire once they stopped playing because the SCA has been around for way longer than the internet and…. whew. Okay.

Note that I will definitely be adding to this page as I clean out more and more bookmarks from my computer.

THIS PAGE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS AND (HOPEFULLY) WILL BE CONSTANTLY UPDATED. Last Update: 29 August 2019

Italian

General Information – Start Here for New Projects!

Realm of Venus
La Bella Donna
- Terms Glossary
- Research Page List of posts to research sorted by type (ie hairstyles, aprons, headdresses, games, etc)
BROKEN LINK – Anéa’s Files Website Dressing the Italian way List of Pieces

Galleries of Paintings

Anéa Costumes
- 1500s Italian portraits on Facebook
- BROKEN LINK – Anéa’s Files Website Working Class Art Gallery – Some Earlier
Realm of Venus – The Wardrobe – late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in portraits sorted by decade and geography
Web Gallery of Art – “searchable database of European fine arts and architecture (3rd-19th centuries), currently containing over 47.300 reproductions”
Late Renaissance Gallery
See also: The MET under the Extant Galleries or Examples section below.
Sophie Stitches

Extant Galleries or Examples

Okay if you haven’t looked at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s gallery search then I’m going to tell you to stop now and go there. Below is a link for only items from 1400-1600 from Venice. Yeah. Flipping phenomenal. Here I’ve limited it to just bobbin lace from the same time and place. There are 95 results. 95. What?! Here are 189 textiles they’ve found. Yeah. Go check out The MET. Please.

The MET – Venice 1400-1600 | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Anéa Costumes
- Extant Album on Facebook Gallery
- BROKEN LINK – Anéa’s Files Website Extant Italian Dresses
All The Pretty Dresses – by Isabella D’Angelo, extant pieces in private collections from pre-1941

Garb Essentials

Anéa Costumes
- BROKEN LINK – Anéa’s Files Website Stiffened Hems
- BROKEN LINK – Anéa’s Files Website Stays/Stiffened Fabrics

Gamurra and Giornea

Sophie Stitches
- 15th C: Italian Gamurra & Giornea c. 1470- 1490s

Zimarra

Morgan Donner – Venetian Zimarra

Hair

La Bella Donna – 14th – 15th Century Italian Hair Kit

Accessories

La Bella Donna – Accessories and Shoes List

Sleeves

Realm of Venus – Danielle Nunn-Weinberg Showcase ** with various sleeve examples
Darth Kendra – 1490s Sleeves
Morgan Donner – Hello! I have been muchly busy…

Partlet

Realm of Venus – IRCC9 – Kairi C ** (her dress is nice, but it was her partlet that I loved so I saved it here instead of with the others)
Morgan Donner
- Italian Partlet – Morgan Donner’s Sewing Party
- Partlets | Flickr

Flag Fans

Realm of Venus – Venetian Flag Fans and photos of one she made herself
BROKEN LINK – Anéa’s Files Website Venetian Flag Fans
The Renaissance Tailor – Three Types of 1500s Fans
Lars Datter Linkspages – Fans

Muff

Realm of Venus – 1590s Muff

Pockets and Purses

Dawn’s Dress Diary – 1480’s Florence Saccoccia
Morgan Donner – Curiously Shaped Purse

Aprons

The MET – Extant 1500-1600s Apron with Trim
Morgan Donner
Lars Datter – Medieval and Renaissance Aprons
Festive Attyre – BROKEN LINK – Working Class Aprons
13Costumes – Pleatwork Apron

Jewelry

Morgan Donner – Italian Jewelry Largesse
La Bella Donna – Tablet Weaving A Silk Filet & Belt

Lifestyle

La Bella Donna
- Amaretto from 1525 includes a portrait of the woman responsible for Amaretto, including her recipe
- Daily Life in middle ages/renaissance Italy mostly Florence specifically
- Italian Dance Manuals
- Food
- Games
- Women’s Lives

Specific Dresses

Tiziano Vecellio (Titian), 1511: Portrait of a Woman Known as La Schiavona

Realm of Venus
- 1510s Venice Painting Gallery
- Clare Drake – IRCC3 – 2013 ** Not actually the same dress, but a very similar shape

Campi Dresses

Realm of Venus IRCC5 Jan Hunnicutt – IRCC5 – 2015 **
- Camicia, petticoat, outer gown, apron, partlet
- detailed apron making
- shawl!! I love love love this pinner and need one
- soft cap
- snood
Silverstah
- BROKEN LINK – Mustard Campi
- BROKEN LINK – 1580’s Campi
- BROKEN LINK – Campi – Kitchen
- BROKEN LINK – ‘Campi’ style Italian working-class dress

The Unicorn (Florence) AND The Pregnant Woman (Florence)

Same dress, different colors. Basically. Raffaelo Sanzi, c1505: Lady with a Unicorn AND Raffaelo Sanzi, c1505-06: Portrait of a Woman (La donna gravida – The pregnant woman)

Realm of Venus
- 1500-1540 Florence Painting Gallery
- Chantelle Gerrard – IRCC3 – 2013 ** similiar style
Anéa Costumes
- BROKEN LINK – Anéa’s Files Website Anea’s Unicorn Dress Diary
- Unicorn On Realm of Venus
- Unicorn Facebook Album

The Preaching of St. John the Baptist (Florence)

Francesco Ubertini (Bacchiacca), c 1520: The Preaching of St John the Baptist

Realm of Venus – 1500-1540 Florence Painting Gallery

Maddalena Doni Portrait by Raphael

Realm of Venus – Anéa Costumes on Realm of Venus

Fabrics

I shamelessly pulled this list from someone’s Realm of Venus contest list. Verbatim-ish. The notes are even hers.

Realm of Venus – An easy to read discourse on the different fabrics used in Italian garment making
Irish Linen Mills – a history of use of linen, abundant and popular in the 16th century, in the area now known as Ireland
Rosalie Gilbert’s Glossary – link to Rosalie’s Medieval Woman’s glossary of fabric, fur and leather names
Truly delightful article on the use of linen in samplers, with wonderful photos of extant samplers currently residing in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, England

Ever After Costume References

Frock Flicks has a listing of many of the dresses
Ever After Costume Study Site

Sewing Notes

13 Costumes – Skirt Attached to Skirt
Eat, Sleep, Write, Sew – a cosplay blogger with tutorials
Stitches and Seam Techniques **
Portia’s Primers – Corsetry ** – Time and time again I saw people link to an article on Festive Attyre’s site called “Everything you ever wanted to know about boning with hemp cord, but were afraid to ask!” and time and time again the links were broken. No more! I finally found someone who has saved it from the past! And yes, you can bet I downloaded this file the moment I found it.

Places to Buy Patterns

Margo Anderson’s Historic Costume Patterns
Classes?

La Bella Donna – at Gulf Wars!

Research Reference Books and Materials

La Bella Donna – Bibliography for her own research

Morgan Donner

^^Click that for her main site. She gets her own H2 heading instead of H3 mostly because I think she’s just great. Sigil agrees too. She sent Morgan a message on Facebook a few weeks ago (just before Pennsic) asking to be her best friend. Morgan agreed. I can’t even be mad that Sigil just replaced me like that.

Her content has helped me so much with her info that I even made a Patreon account just to support her …. I know how expensive domain fees can be. She also has an Etsy shop.

Morgan Donner’s Sewing Party Facebook
Morgan Donner’s YouTube
Morgan Donner Flickr
She’s on DeviantArt too.
I also have her Pintrest saved
Has not been updated since 2014 but I weirdly found her Live Journal here linked from another site.
Heather Morgan – IRCC4 – 2014 ** 1550-1570’s c-c-c-combo that is absolutely lovely
- This is a lower waist than my normal but holy damn it’s pretty and perfect and amazing and so well documented.
- I’ve been avoiding bringing photos over from this page because I don’t have permission to use them but I’m breaking that rule here.
- More posts about this dress are on her website
She also made herself some awesome boy garb! Heather Morgan – IRCC2 – 2012 **

Here are just a sampling of some more of her dresses that I’m in love with:

I know I get a notification every time someone links to one of my pages on this website – it’s not often that it happens and it’s usually me elsewhere doing it – but I wonder if she does too…..

Awesome People with Awesome Web Presences That I Just Haven’t Finished Categorizing…

You’ll see their links repeated through the following categories. These are ones I have kind of explored but haven’t linked to all their pages I wanted to keep.

Known to be Active

13Costumes
Anéa Costumes Focuses on 16th century Italian on Facebook I used to have many links to her website but it appears to be down
The Compleatly Dressed Anachronis by Master Edthy Miller
Darth Kendra Research
The Earth Is Flat: & Other Dressmaking Conventions (last update April 2019)
Festive Attyre and Festive Attyre Flickr Page
Gebhard’s Blog Gebhard’s Blog
Is That an Apres? (last update March 2019, posts about once a year)
Isabella’s Project Diary by Isabella D’Angelo
- Isabella’s Project Diary: Italian
La Bella Donna – by Giata Magdalena Alberti, “arts, skills, sciences, and philosophies of Renaissance Italy (1430-1600)” with a blog here that I haven’t fully explored. Some pages I saved:
Loose Threads: Yet Another Costuming Blog
Realm of Venus – sixteenth-century Venetian women’s fashion, led by Anabella Wake SCA Bella Lucia de Verona, her full Renaissance Italy site here

Other

1500 Stitches by Margaret Wolseley, 1500s Venice Man
The Renaissance Tailor (last update unknown)
Historical Costuming with Chantelle Gerrard (last update unknown)
The Tudor Revolution (last update January 2018)
Studio Zanobia (last update 2013)
Sew Crazy, Sew Mad (last update 2014)
Chimera’s Closet (last update 2012)
Caravan of Elephants (last update 2014)
Paige’s into the Past (last update 2014)
Silverstah – Well this site went dark, but I found her “other” website – Laura J Parker – which has a couple articles, but not many, and her Flickr / DeviantArt that contains some photos and a Pintrest with some neat boards to follow
- BROKEN LINK – 1580’s Italian Working Class Dress
- BROKEN LINK – Green with Orange Sleeves
- BROKEN LINK – 1560s Red and Gold Court Dress
Shushanna Designs: 16th Century Italian Garb

Realm of Venus Annual Renaissance Costume Challenge Entrants

The Realm of Venus hosts annually a costume challenge. You can read her details about it on the 2019 Challenge page here. The below are just ones I’ve chosen to save with some notes on why I saved them each. Note that I’ve moved some to the “Specific Dresses” section if applicable. There are TONS of amazing resources throughout these pages but I only saved the ones relevant to my current interests.

Victoria Black – IRCC1 – 2011 **
Hannah Fuhriman – IRCC2 – 2012 **
April Maybee – IRCC3 – 2013 **
Lynda Fjellman – IRCC5 – 2015 ** 1500 upper-class countrywoman
- Stocking pattern image
- Close-up of camicia cuff that I love
- How to pattern some leather slippers
- How to add some super cool seams to my camicias
- Pockets
Celeste Wheater – IRCC5 – 2015 ** 1510 Milan red and yellow dress
- Camicia, partlet, hose, sleeves, saccocia
- Scuffia hair bag! Neeeeed.
Carol Lewis – IRCC5 – 2015 ** 16th century Italian
- Camicia, farsettina, overdress, pocket, har, zimmara (loose gown), sottana
- farsettina might be what I need for undergarments! It appears here as a basic “Campi” that laces up the front
- Sottana here is just a looser, full Campi shape
- Zimmara – this is that robe thing with the awesome shoulders, per her also called veste and gamurra
- Amazingly awesome apron detail smocking
Realm of Venus – Angela Ketley – IRCC5 – 2015 ** Giovanna Tornabuoni recreation
- camicia, gamurra, sleeves, giornea, fazzoletto, sleeves, apron, partlet
- partlet = fazzoletto
- super floofy green velvet dress
Zacharlija Standish – IRCC7 – 2017
Hallie Larsen – IRCC8 – 2018
Jennifer Lee – IRCC8 – 2018 ** young woman in pink from Ghirlandaio’s Birth of St. John the Baptist
- Finally a two-part sleeve!!!
Angela Smith – IRCC8 – 2018 ** mid-1500s and totally Florence but damn it I’m in love
Crystal Tice – IRCC9 – 2019 ** 1510s del Piombo’s Daughter of Herodias.
- huge bag sleeves like I’m trying with the LaSchiavona
- camicia, underskirt, over-gown, partlet, apron, coif, shoes
- she did the partlet as just a rectangle which is nice
- coif similar to the LaSchiavona!
Kathleen Zanardo – IRCC9 – 2019 **
- Parmigianino’s “Antea”. The painting was executed in 1535 in the city of Parma
- Not my normal look but holy goodness it looks amazing
Hannah Fuhriman – IRCC9 – 2019 **
- Had to save for her AMAZING accessory work
- Beaded and embroidered partlet
- Breeches/bloomers
- hand-embroidered camicia

I haven’t looked through all the showcases, but here are a few I had bookmarked:

Viking / Varangian / Rus

Sophie Stitches
- Viking Links Collection **
- Russian Links Collection **

This section is only VERY VAGUELY sorted. AKA I didn’t actually open any of these links to properly sort them, I went specifically based on the URL and page name in my Bookmarks alone…