Magistra Beatrice Domenici della Campana was put on vigil for the Order of the Pelican at Known World Heralds and Scribes at the end of June in 2023, for elevation at Pennsic. My dear friend has a 1490 Venetian persona, and asked me to do her cloak – in this case, a coat. Beatrice had a lovely cotton velveteen she wanted to use for this, and so we started with that, lined in a midweight linen.
This project had two major elements – the coat and the embellishments.
The Zimarra
I started with a zimarra pattern that Beatrice had just finished drafting and sewing for Northshield Crown Tournament that May – It was done after the Alcega ropa pattern, though she had gone with the simple short collar that was so common in artistic representations. The pattern woodcut, however, has this giant standing collar that we also see on one of our few extant examples.
This, like most of my projects, is flat lined with medium weight linen. I then encased the seams in black bias tape. After a couple of pattern drafts on the collar, I interlined it 14 oz starched linen canvas to give the satellite dish effect. In order to evoke ermine trim without adding actual fur, the center front and the sleeve openings were trimmed in ribbed silk taffeta, and then I used black knot closures for the ermine tails. Unfortunately, due to the fact I had a 6 week timeline and several other projects that were due for that Pennsic, the only portions of this project that were done by hand were the toggles, the black trim, and the hems/cuffs. But then, we had a coat!
The Embroidery
I wanted to do a large back pelican medallion on the coat, even though it’s more of an sca-ism rather than 15th c Venetian. I did the design in consultation with Beatrice, because I knew she’d have opinions of which pelican she’d be willing to wear. We settled on this example from the V&A, originally from Siena dated 1500-1515
The next step was to create the cartoon and start in on the embroidery itself. I went with a midweight white linen as our base. The pelican and her chicks are done entirely in silk – one of my favorite things about doing this sort of embroidery is the chatoyance you can get from the silk and how the directionality of the stiches gives such dimensionality.
Once I had the main motif done, I needed to attach it to the back panel of the coat. Because of how the linen was cupping slightly after I pulled it out of the hoop, I could either block it out and set the original dimensions again, or, I could stuff it. So there’s a bit of linen lint behind the ground. I am always amazed at how much of a difference adding the outline makes.
But having the bird floating in space was not going to work – the original had a wreath, we wanted one here, too. I found this c. 1500 plate from the Netherlands held at the Met and instantly pounced.
This frame gave me the idea of how to incorporate references to her story without using her device. The original has stylized pomegranates, which I replaced with the lion of An Tir and the gryphon of Northshield, those being the places she’s lived. And then I also referenced the elements for which she was being elevated – her work with the University of Atlantia, whose heraldry is an apple, and her work as a herald, with the crossed trumpets. The frame was done directly on the velvet again with silk (the black marker visible is heat erasable – I hit this with a steamer to make the lines go away).
I took the back panel, treated it as one solid panel for the flat lining, and assembled the coat. And then we were done, with an entire 6 hours to spare.
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