Face of Cecilia Gallerani, famous Lady with an Ermine painted by Leonardo at the end of the 1400s
Cecilia Gallerani , the beautiful girl immortalized by Leonardo da Vinci perhaps in 1489 (the date is uncertain), known in the History of Art as The Lady with the ermine , sports a refined hairstyle which is worth analyzing closely.
Milanese from a good family, at the time of the painting just fifteen and a lover of the much more mature (over thirty) Ludovico Sforza, the young woman had herself portrayed with a hairstyle “Spanish style “, but revisited according to the exquisite Lombard taste, whose regional capital, even then, dictated the law in terms of fashion (and not only).
The girl's perfectly straight brown hair is divided at the top of the head by a central line from which two adherent bands unravel, gathered on the back by a tail ( "coazzone "In Milanese), in turn inserted into the" trenzado ", or a sheath that was used to hold and braid the hair; the lock on the right, passed under the chin, was quite a whimsy in vogue at that time.
A cap is clearly visible on the top of Cecilia's head very thin and transparent with the embroidered hem that touches the eyebrows, in turn held by a "fishing line “, Ie a strip that surrounds the forehead and fastens behind her; this strip could be in metal or fabric and often closed with a jewel.
If it is true that women's fashion, in certain places in Italy, often showed itself excessive and brazen at the end of the fifteenth century, it is certain that Gallerani, also supported by natural beauty and a very young age, stood out for elegance and sobriety.