The Venetian women, even at this day, and the Paduan, and those of Verona, and other parts of Italy, practise the same vanity, and receive the same recompense for their affectation; there being in all these cities open and manifest examples of those who have undergone a kind of martyrdom to render their hair yellow.
Schenekins relates the history of a certain noble gentlewoman, about sixteen or seventeen years of age, who would expose her bare head to the fervent heat of the sun daily, for some hours, that she might obtain long and yellow hair, by anointing it with a certain unguent; and although she obtained the effect she desired, yet she consequently procured to herself a violent headache, and bled every day abundantly through the nose.
Another maiden, also, by using this same art, became almost blind with sore eyes. Painting the hair blue or red, has been anciently noted by many poets, who took occasion to describe it, as may be seen in Pliny and Ovid.
This yellow hair was esteemed so great a rarity, that oftentimes, also, the natural crop was shaven off, and a yellow periwig clapped on instead; this Martial happily ridicules:
The golden hair that Galla wears,
Is hers—who would have thought it?
She swears ’tis hers—and true she swears,
For I—know where she bought it.
This, indeed, is carried to a great extent in the Low Countries, where the Jewish women, who are all black-haired by nature, wear great yellow periwigs instead,—golden-haired Dutch Venuses.