Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-210) and index.

Machine generated contents note: Prologue -- Telling a story with draperies -- ch. 1 Clothing palaces and depicting nativities -- ch. 2 Textiles in public places: furnishing church and street -- ch. 3 Cosmic veils and curtained tabernacles -- ch. 4 Birth and death: from swaddling to shroud -- ch. 5 Sculpted folds and translucent veils -- ch. 6 Clothing the sacred body: from Donatello to Bellini -- ch. 7 Lorenzo Lotto: drapery possessed -- ch. 8 Titian's veils.

This wide-ranging book elucidates the symbolism of veils and highlights the power of drapery in Italian art from Giotto to Titian. In the cities of the Renaissance, display of luxury dress was a marker of status. Florentines decked out their palaces and streets with textiles for public rituals. But cloths are also the stuff of fantasy: throughout the book, the author moves from the material to the metaphorical. Curtains and veils, swaddling and shrouds, evoke associations with birth and death. The central chapters address the sculpture of Ghiberti and Donatello, focusing on how they deployed drapery to dramatic effect. In the final chapters the focus shifts to the paintings of Bellini, Lotto, and Titian, where drapery both clothes the figures and composes the picture. In the work of Titian, the veiled presence of the body is absorbed within the materials of oil-paint on canvas: medium and subject become one.