The rise and fall of the codpiece - in pictures
Did the codpiece – highlight of male fashion in the Renaissance – gradually succumb to the ‘peascod’ belly? As a Cambridge conference investigates the subject, follow the pouch’s rise and fall through European portraiture
• Research confirms inadequacy of codpieces in TV version of Wolf Hall
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Codpiece rising
Georg Pencz, Portrait of a Young Man, 1544Photograph: Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
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Giovanni Battista Moroni, Portrait of Antonio Navagero, 1565
Photograph: Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
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Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, 1530-32
Photograph: Galleria Palatina Repository, Florence
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Parmigianino, Pedro Maria Rossi – or Roscio, Count of San Secondo, 1535-39
Photograph: Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Titian, Portrait of Charles V, 1533
Photograph: Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Matthaüs Schwarz Klaidungsbüchlein, 1520-60
Photograph: Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig
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Bernardino Licinio, Portrait of Ottavio Grimani, 1541
Photograph: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
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Belly up
Alonzo Sanchez Coello, Portrait of Don Juan d’ Austria, c.1576Photograph: Museo del Prado, El Escorial, San Lorenzo
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Alonzo Sanchez Coello, Portrait of Archduke Ernst of Austria, c.1580
Photograph: Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Pieter Jansz. Pourbus, Portrait of Sebastian I of Portugal, c.1578
Photograph: The Weiss Gallery, London
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Jan Baptist Saive, Portrait of Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, c.1585
Photograph: Galleria Nazionale, Parma
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Giovanni Battista Moroni, Portrait of Jacopo Contarini, 1575
Photograph: Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
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