The posthumous portrait of Eleonora de Toledo and the portrait of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici that hang - facing one another - in the Studiolo of Francesco I in Palazzo Vecchio recall the Duchess and Duke as their son Francesco wanted them to remain indelibly impressed in eternal memory. The Duchess is portrayed in the flower of her beauty as the “first lady” of a reigning dynasty, and is dressed as befits her role. The face meets all the canons of beauty illustrated by the portrait painters of the time: wide forehead, thin brows, dark tawny eyes, moderately-proportioned ears; her clothing is the type she normally wore, red with gold decoration, while her jewels - the pearls and pendent at her neck - are her favourite pieces. Duke Cosimo -founder of the dynasty and the state, who made Palazzo della Signoria (today known as Palazzo Vecchio) the first among the Medici palaces and worthy of its designation in its size and decoration - is portrayed in armour. Today, the Monumental Quarters of Palazzo Vecchio have become a museum in which richly-decorated and frescoed rooms, almost all painted with secular scenes in which the historical figures are dressed in the fashion of the second half of the Cinquecento - in other words, in re-interpretations of the ancient fashion of the Florence of the 1400s and 1 300s and of classical antiquity. Palazzo Vecchio consequently proposes to its visitors of all ages and origins various communications tools for observing and understanding certain facets of the lifestyle and the ideas of the Civiltà del Rinascimento a Firenze [Florentine Renaissance civilization] that generated these works. As regards the history of fashion and taste, in particular, visitors are offered two complementary tools: detailed information in individually-accessible multimedia form and the possibility of attending dramatizations staged in the Theatre of the Civiltà del Rinascimento a Firenze Museum on the Mezzanine floor of Palazzo Vecchio, The multimedia information can be consulted throughout The Monumental Quarters, in Italian or English, at the stations containing the CD-ROM Palazzo Vecchio Segreto [The Secrets of Palazzo Vecchio), three chapters of which are dedicated to fashion and the perception of the human body at the Medici court: Il lusso di Eleonora [Eleonora’s Luxury] dedicated to the style of Eleonora de Toledo and women’s fashion; L’eleganza di Cosimo [Cosimo’s Elegance], exploring the style of Cosimo I and the characteristics of men’s fashion; I piccoli principi [The Little Princes) dedicated to the children’s clothing, from birth onward. The dramatizations staged in the Mezzanine of Palazzo Vecchio are based on reconstructions of the clothing of Cosimo, Eleonora, of several of their children, of Giorgio Vasari - court painter and architect from 1555 to 1574 - of one of the Duchess’ ladies-in-waiting, and of one of the young princes’ nurses. The clothing is made of precious silks in respect of l0th-century models, cuts, and sartorial techniques. Also reconstructed on the basis of thorough analysis of the images found in art and the latest studies of the history of costume are footwear, jewellery, accessories for the women’s coiffeurs, hats, gloves, underclothes, and corsets. The public can thus see and touch the clothing and even try on some of the articles, but above all interact with the animator-actors who impersonate the Duke and Duchess, discovering in the process the language of the fashion and the body-language of the Florence of the times. Paola Pacetti