[39] Based on nearly 30,000 textile and clothing entries in the Refashioning the Renaissance database (available online in 2022 at
https://refashioningrenaissance.eu/database/), transcribed from post-mortem inventories of artisans and shopkeepers from Venice, Florence and Siena, 1550-1650. The sample considered here includes only clothing items (excluding trimmings, accessories and stocks of textiles) that were found in the homes of local artisans and shopkeepers, leaving 15,534 entries. Out of these, colour was defined in 5,890 cases, of which 2,238 were described as black. Tuscan tailors’ account books also show that the artisanal clientele regularly purchased black clothes, usually made of relatively cheap fabrics, such as Sangallo wool, fustian, or linen-cotton mixes. See Cerri, “Sarti Toscani” 421-33, based on an early seventeenth-century account book of Pellegrino di Antonio Lucchesino da Silano, tailor at Livorno ASF, Libri di commercio, 3006.