The Big Green Cioppa

The Big Green Cioppa

Some people have asked me to move all the cioppa pictures to a new page. Here, then, for your viewing pleasure are all the pictures I have uploaded of the cioppa, and comments.

The Big Green Cioppa - front

The cioppa is an Italian overgown worn over a doublet and fluffy white undershirt. It was made of around 11 yards of dark green gabardine lined in twill cotton, with purple velveteen lining on the sleeves. It is trimmed in one row of gold Europa gimp braid flanked by rows of very narrow black satin ribbon. The trim goes around the neckline, down the front to cover the front seam, and around the bottom hem, as well as around the edges of the angel-wing sleeves. Scraps of purple were used to make the edging at the hem.

In this shot, the doublet isn't beneath the cioppa, because it hadn't been made yet. The model is wearing only a camicia (fluffy white shirt) underneath.

I should also probably mention that I hadn't bought nearly enough of the green stuff -- I was short nearly 4 yards and ended up piecing one sleeve out of 1' wide scraps left over from cutting the body of the garment. But you can't tell at all -- the seams just disappear into all those gathers and folds.

A shot of the front of the costume, with a beige farsetto (doublet) worn under the cioppa. Cioppas were popular in Florence from around 1440 to well into the 1500s, in varying forms. As the years passed, younger men wore steadily shorter and shorter cioppas, and less and less structured cioppas, until the trendiest types dispensed with them altogether and began parading around in just the farsetto and hose (and a brightly-colored codpiece, of course).


The left side, with the thrown-back sleeve.	From the back.	Front view, with boots on.

This garment was made from dark green gabardine -- not the best choice, because it is artificial and because it really hasn't got a lot of body. I lined it with some (fuschia) cotton twill I had on hand, which gave it a bit more, but as you can see, not *quite* enough! For some reason I didn't line the sleeves with the twill. I should have.

I should mention that the trim down the front isn't anything I've seen in any portraits. I did it because it looked cool to me. Since then I've seen a few examples of trim down the front of a garment, but nothing like this. To be fair, trim covering seamlines is perfectly acceptable, so somewhere out there it probably exists the way I've done it.. I just haven't found documentation yet for it.

Overall I'm pleased with this first effort -- it fits marvelously well, the pleating came out all right, and it's very elegant-looking. I'm also informed it's fairly comfortable, considering it traps heat badly and that it weighs about 10 pounds.

Total yardage: 45" green gabardine, about 11 yards (much of one sleeve is piece from scraps, but you can't really tell; ideally, I'd use about 14 yards of the green); 45" purple velveteen, 8 yards; 60" cotton twill, about 5 yards; trims, 20 yards each. I'd estimate it took me a good 100 hours at least to do this costume. The long seams are machine-stitched, but all trims and seam finishes were done by hand.

Detail of doublet sleeve under cioppa's big sleeve. Detail of extended sleeve.

Front View

Seen from the right side. From the waist up, showing trim details and thrown-back sleeve.

This page last updated: July 10, 2009

All text copyright Vangelista di Antonio Dellaluna, except where otherwise noted. All portraits are understood to be copyright- free and are presented as research aids only.