The playwright no doubt heard the speech in actual life. The cavalier was the real master of the house in many families, yet now and then a husband could be jealous, though not in the least in love.
Goldoni says that there were husbands who put up with their wives’ cavaliers in a submissive spirit, but that there were others who were enraged
Goldoni, vol. ii. chap. x.
by those strange beings, who were like second masters of the house in disorganised families.
It is certain that the Venetian ladies cared more for gambling than for adornment, or anything else. In the morning they wore a dress of more or less rich stuff, but always black, and when they went out they wore a long scarf, also black, which they disposed with much grace upon their heads, crossed upon their bosom, and knotted loosely behind the waist. This dress went by the general name of ‘Cendaleto,’ and it was the custom to apply the appellation also to those who wore it. They said, for instance, that there were so many ‘Cendaleti’ at a ceremony, meaning that number of ladies. Giustina Renier Michiel, the historian of all that was left of grace and beauty in Venice, says that the scarf had the magic power of making the plainest women pretty.
Though dress was simple enough on ordinary occasions, conforming to certain rules, yet on gala occasions the latest fashions were consulted.
Rom. viii. 303.
In earlier times Venice had set the fashion for the world, and beautifully dressed dolls had been sent by the Venetian women’s tailors as models to Paris. In the eighteenth century Paris sent dolls to Venice. These dolls were exhibited at the fair of the Ascension, near the entrance to the Merceria, and took the place of fashion-plates and dressmakers’ journals. The men wore the cut-away coat, breeches, silk stockings, shoes with buckles, wigs, and three-cornered hats, then common throughout Italy and France; but they had invented a singular fashion of their own, which was that of throwing a light mantle of velvet, satin, or cloth over their hat and wig. It was called the ‘velada,’ and was adorned with embroidery, lace, or a fringe. In the end, it was sometimes made of lace only. As the law did not allow any member of the Great Council to appear in public without his toga, the nobles introduced a fashion which soon became common in all classes; they wore a black or white mask,
SS. GIOVANNI E PAOLO