What do we wear after we die? Do we need clothing in the afterlife? If we do have clothing will these clothes bear any relationship to those which we own and wear in this life? Can clothing move between the mortal and immortal worlds? What messages does clothing convey about heaven or hell? These questions may appear trivial, simplistic or just superficial when placed against debates about identity and the resurrection of the body. Yet for those struggling to understand and explain the relationship between the mortal and immortal worlds, dress and bodily adornment represented a means through which reward and punishment after death could be earned, as well as illustrated and explored, something which is testified to in numerous textual and visual sources. Through a series of case studies of Italian art from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, "Dressing for Heaven" explores the relationship of clothing to salvation. Contents: 1. Written on clothes / written in clothes. 2. Clothing the Virgin: art, relics and power in Prato. 3. Men and religious clothing: symbolism, vows and recognition (i) Religious habits and visual propaganda: the vision of the Blessed Reginald of Orléans (ii) Franciscans and Carmelites (iii) Hermits, habits and history: the dress of the Augustinian hermits. 4. Women and religious clothing: dressing the part (i) 'Naked and ye clothed me': Saint Catherine of Siena, clothing and visionary experience (ii) Clothing as salvation: the life and representation of Santa Francesca Romana (iii) Women, weaving and salvation: the allegory of the afterlife in San Michele, Paganico. 5. Dressing for eternity: visual and literary accounts of clothing for the end of time.
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