Gentle Spiders,
In the book I'm currently reading (The Dress of the Venetians,
1495-1525; by Stella Mary Newton), among the many untranslated Italian
(and/or Venetian) words/phrases/sentences there's one, which I'd
really, really would like to know the *exact* meaning of.
It's: Provedadori sopra le pompe
I learnt, from various contexts (the phrase keeps coming up again and
again), what it *is*. It's a little committee of 3 people who are, in
essence, "clothes police". They investigate the clothing transgressions
of upper class women (mostly), bring them to the attention of the Grand
Council, which then debates, legislates and issues new proclamations
forbidding this, that or the other (dresses have to be of single colour
only; no brocades. Sleeves have to be "straight and narrow"; none of
the "ducal" or "bird's craw" excesses. Sleeves should use no more than
2 yards of fabric per pair, even on the undershirts. Etc).
So, I do know what they *do*; what I don't know is what the committee's
title means, literally. Do we have someone with fluent Italian who can
translate the title for me? I can make a stab at the "le pompe" bit; I
assume it's "pomp" in the sense of "pomp and circumstance". But, the
other two words, in that particular configuration...?
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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