Late 14th-century doublets grew shorter, leaving men's anatomy exposed beneath separate hose. Tailors solved this with triangular fabric flaps (early codpieces) laced between the legs for modesty.
Renaissance men had other ideas.
They padded these flaps with horsehair or straw, crafted them from velvet or silk, and embroidered them with gold thread and pearls.
What began as a practical solution became a theatrical assertion of masculinity.
By the 1540s, these "convenient pockets" were used to hold little objects like handkerchiefs and coins.
But their true purpose was never in doubt: a bold, protruding advertisement of virility and fertility.
Codpieces also appeared in metal, integrated into parade armor.
In portraiture, they featured prominently, rendered in velvet, brocade, or steel, sometimes shaped like shells or wedges, sometimes rounded and aggressively swollen.
Young men wore them proudly.
Sumptuary laws often restricted silks and ornamentation, but codpieces, perhaps due to their association with military attire and virility, remained exempt in many contexts.
Henry VIII’s codpieces became legendary. Painters like Holbein and sculptors at court reinforced the message: power, lineage, and potency were all encoded in fabric.
But excess invites ridicule. Writers like Montaigne mocked them as empty and useless.
Fashion turned elsewhere: padded doublets, grand collars, assertive shoulders. Masculine focus shifted upward.
By the 1590s, the codpiece had quietly disappeared, absorbed into the history of vanished silhouettes.
What remains are portraits where Renaissance masculinity still bulges with a confidence we can barely comprehend today.
Portrait of Emperor Charles V (1533) by Tiziano
Portrait of Henry VIII (1536/7) by Hans Holbein The Younger
Portrait of an 18yo man (1544) by Georg Pencz
Portrait of Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol (1548) by Jakob Seisenegger
Portrait of Lodovico Capponi (1551) by Agnolo Bronzino
Portrait of Alessandro Farnese (after 1559) by Alonso Sánchez Coello
Horsehair and straw? Not the softest materials a man should want on his family jewels.
An informative, entertaining article, HM, grazie della godibile lettura!
Renaissance equivalent of breast augmentation.