Leonardo Da Vinci

[qwerty]

There is a short movie on Discovery about Leonardo Da Vinci. It shows a man on a field doing some experiment with a mirror. I guess that it is supposed to be Leonardo Da Vinci. The man in the movie wears a brown fedora. Is that possible? Were there fedoras in his time?

 

[deanglen]

There is a short movie on Discovery about Leonardo Da Vinci. It shows a man on a field doing some experiment with a mirror. I guess that it is supposed to be Leonardo Da Vinci. The man in the movie wears a brown fedora. Is that possible? Were there fedoras in his time?

GREAT QUESTION! I pray someone can answer that. Maybe Italian-wiseguy.


dean

 

[qwerty]

So, nobody knows anything about this?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Sorry, but I wasn't alive at the time. [huh]

.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

A fedora is all wrong for the Renaissance. The fedora was named after that character in a play from the 1880s (the play's name escapes me). But this is Da Vinci, so maybe in between all of that secret code stuff , he invented the fedora too. lol

I am sure there was some sort of wide brimmed hat of the time, but not a fedora.

 

[herringbonekid]

the play was called 'fedora'. by Victorien Sardou, 1882.
the fedora hat was invented in the mid 1910s.

 

[deanglen]

the play was called 'fedora'. by Victorien Sardou, 1882.
the fedora hat was invented in the mid 1910s.

Thanks, HBK. That's the first time I've ever seen such information. Where could one find that and more about hat history?

dean

 

[Russ]

The brimmed felt hat has been with us for a very long time, even in Leonardo's time, and front pinches have been on hats for as long as hat wearers have had thumbs and fingers to put them there. So the hat style we now call the fedora had been around a long time before that play. The play simply gave a new name to an old hat.

Now if Leonardo in the documentary had a grosgrain ribbon on his hat, I would say somebody was having a little fun with the costuming.

 

[John in Covina]

Fedora predates written human history!

Cave drawings showing Neanderthals wearing Fedoras in France appear in the National Geographic Magazine in 1963 and is the actual reason for the decline in sales.

Homo Erectus was noted for wearing Pork Pie hats.

Australiopithicus favored Deerslayer caps or those London Bobbie hard hats.

Fossilized in Sediments almost 500 million years ago is archeopteryx next to a prehistoric top hat.:eusa_doh:

 

[Dinerman]

anybody got a picture or screengrab?

 

[scotrace]

Thanks, HBK. That's the first time I've ever seen such information. Where could one find that and more about hat history?

dean

I'm reading this one now - it's quite good for hat history!

 

[Russ]

Cave drawings showing Neanderthals wearing Fedoras in France appear in the National Geographic Magazine in 1963 and is the actual reason for the decline in sales.

Well here is proof of your statement, plus evidence that Fred was a Neanderthal.

 

[Matt Deckard]

The felt hat has been around long enough for Leonardo to be wearing what could have resembled a fedora. Whether he did or not is not drawn.

The fedora is a slouch hat. It's a sibbling to the Boss of the plains and the tricorn. It just doesn't have it's sides pinned up. It's soft and floppy... that's what makes a fedora, that and the shorter brim than a slouch hat in the military sense. Could Leonardo have worn a fedora? Yes he could have... though I'm sure if anyone was wearing a fedora back then, the chances of it having a curled brim and a ribbon like those used in the last 3 centuries is very slim.

 

[Italian-wiseguy]

Well, brimmed hats seem to be quite old.
Looks like even in greek and roman age voyagers and open-air workers wore similar hats, as e.g. the "petasos".
And for sure they used (also) felt for their hats.

I can't remember, at least in this very moment, of a painting previous than 1600 showing a guy wearing a slouch hat, but methink felt, brimmed hats aren't supposed to have popped out from nothing in 1600.

Actually, the kind of brimmed hats we see e.g. in Caravaggio's or Rembrandt's paintings (or on the heads of XVII century "mousquetaires" for that matter ) looks too much evolved to be an ex novo creation, so it's very unlikely that it has been created in Greece, forgotten in the Middle Age and then created again in XVI or XVII century.

More probably, slouch hats, more or less wide brimmed, more or less popular between wealthy classes etc., have always been around;
also cause they're actually quite practical.

So, while I personally can't think at Leonardo da Vinci wearing a real "fedora" as we know it, I can imagine him quite well with some kind of felt slouch hat.

Ciao!