Visconti - Moon - Hair

Shalott

Hi,
I have now searched all I can stand!!! :)

I just recently got my beautiful Visconti by Berti deck, but I can't quite figure out why it seems that several of the females depicted throughout the deck, particularly the Moon, have such high hairlines. The Moon, she looks like she's shaved part of her head! Is this just a quirk of the art, or does it mean something?

Thanks!
 

jmd

It was quite common during late mediaeval and early renaissance times to depict feminine beauty with very high hairlines... and a number of noble ladies are thereby depicted, in northern Italy as elsewhere...
 

Myrrha

I think some women of that period did shave their hairlines back in order to fit the ideal that jmd refers to. To people of the period the look suggested intelligence and nobility of thought, like our term "high brow"

--Myrrha
 

Shalott

Ahh...interesting. I have to admit to being a tad weirded out by it, but at least now I know there's a reason for it, and a better one than I was thinking: that it was a result of some kind of disease or an attempt to keep lice down. Yeah, I know the Renaissance wasn't always pretty, but I suppose they wouldn't necessarily portray that in art the wealthy commissioned.

Thanks!