Renáta Says....

As the member of the group Order of Knighthood of Bela III, I learn and perform renaissance dances. Our order works in Hungary, in the town of Székesfehérvár. For almost five centuries Székesfehérvár was the very place where the kings of the Kingdom of Hungary were crowned and buried. Unfortunately what was left for today’s generation are the ruins of the crowning temple and the bones of our mighty kings buried mixed, in mass graves. Our main aim is to put an end to these unmerited circumstances. Beside this in our free time we study authentic renaissance dance books and learn new dances from them. Unfortunately no Hungarian dances were left to us from this era, hence we perform in fifteenth to sixteenth-century Italian-style dresses instead of Hungarian ones. One of these is visible on the pictures.

Inspiration

The dress was inspired by the central character of Ghirlandaio’s fresco, ’Birth of the Virgin’.

The Dress

While designing the dress we had to take several aspects into consideration. Most important was authenticity and an easy-to-wear design. Because of the latter the originally three-piece dress consists of only two, an underwear and an outer garment. The underwear was made of batiste.

The outer garment of gold and silver brocade. The sleeves are held together with gold cords. The wrist and front of the dress is decorated with pearls.

Thanks

The dress could never have been completed without the enthusiastic job of the mother of one of our dancers, Mrs Tímea Bozsa, who sewed it according to the original painting, and the plans of Judit Menner, the leader of the dance-group.