Susan Mosher Stuard is Professor of History Emeritus at Haverford College. She is editor of Women in Medieval Society and Women in Medieval History and Historiography and author of A State of Deference: Ragusa/Dubrovnik in the Medieval Centuries, all published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

"This highly informative and well written book is one that anyone concerned with material culture in Italy from any period will want to read."-Renaissance Quarterly "Gilding the Market effectively links the material and cultural, showing that fashionable clothing is not simply a matter of visual discourse and self-representation but a primary item of exchange."-Journal of Interdisciplinary History "This wide-ranging book on the late medieval marketplace for luxury goods by a historian of enormous erudition and experience brings a lifetime of research to bear on the world of luxury consumption and ... the advent of 'fashion.'"-American Historical Review "An ambitious book that leads ... into one of the most complex issues in the study of late medieval and early Renaissance Italy: the consumerist growth of a strong taste for and purchase, by those wealthy enough, of fashionable clothes and artifacts."-Speculum

• Chapter 1. IntroductionChapter 2. Desirable WaresChapter 3. Gravitas and ConsumptionChapter 4. Curbing Women's ExcessesChapter 5. Costs of LuxuriesChapter 6. Shops and TradesChapter 7. MarketmakersChapter 8. ConclusionNotesBibliographyIndexAcknowledgments

Susan Mosher Stuard is Professor of History Emeritus at Haverford College. She is editor of Women in Medieval Society and Women in Medieval History and Historiography and author of A State of Deference: Ragusa/Dubrovnik in the Medieval Centuries, all published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

"This highly informative and well written book is one that anyone concerned with material culture in Italy from any period will want to read."-Renaissance Quarterly "Gilding the Market effectively links the material and cultural, showing that fashionable clothing is not simply a matter of visual discourse and self-representation but a primary item of exchange."-Journal of Interdisciplinary History "This wide-ranging book on the late medieval marketplace for luxury goods by a historian of enormous erudition and experience brings a lifetime of research to bear on the world of luxury consumption and ... the advent of 'fashion.'"-American Historical Review "An ambitious book that leads ... into one of the most complex issues in the study of late medieval and early Renaissance Italy: the consumerist growth of a strong taste for and purchase, by those wealthy enough, of fashionable clothes and artifacts."-Speculum

• Chapter 1. IntroductionChapter 2. Desirable WaresChapter 3. Gravitas and ConsumptionChapter 4. Curbing Women's ExcessesChapter 5. Costs of LuxuriesChapter 6. Shops and TradesChapter 7. MarketmakersChapter 8. ConclusionNotesBibliographyIndexAcknowledgments