Thesis abstract:

«p»This thesis seeks to answer the deceptively simple question: why did men in early modern Italy wear rings? The cultural practices associated with ring wearing, how rings were read by contemporary viewers, and the cultural significance of the creation, trade, and wearing of rings can all be understood through a gendered lens. Masculine power and authority was a finely honed performance in – though not unique to – the northern states of early modern Italy to which adorning the hand significantly contributed. By exploring ritual, pictorial, bibliographical, and material sources from the fifteenth century, this thesis will argue that male hand adornment differed in purpose and interpretation to female adornment. Ring-wearing was an outward way for men to demonstrate political, economic, marital, and religious status and help shape the multiple masculine identities men in the past embodied.«/p»