Is that a zibellino you're wearing?

A while back, I linked this portrait of an Elizabethan lady (by William Segar c. 1595), commenting in an off-handed sort of way that she seemed to be clutching a dead monkey by the neck. Well, it's definitely dead, but it isn't a monkey, as a knowledgeable reader has pointed out. Stephen G. from Australia informs me that the animal is probably a "fur tippett," a clothing accessory made from animal fur or, in this case, from an entire dead animal,  probably a marten or a sable, its head and paws replaced by gold forms and encrusted with jewels.

Accessories of this sort were sixteenth-century fashion statements known as zibellini (sing. zibellino):

 

Comments

[MC]

Zibellini? So, that's the etymology for 'Bling'...

[Jake]

Not just Bling.. but Fecund Bling.. That just has the ugliest sound to it...