part of her life in England, in the Lai of Lanval thus described a beautiful woman:  “Her body was beautiful, her hips low, the neck whiter than snow, the eyes gray (vairs), the face white, the mouth beautiful, the nose well placed, the eyebrows brown, the forehead beautiful, the head curly and blonde; the gleam of gold thread was less bright than her hair beneath the sun.”

The traits of Boccaccio’s ideal of feminine beauty, a voluptuous ideal as compared with the ascetic mediaeval ideal which had previously prevailed, together with the characteristics of the very beautiful and almost classic garments in which he arrayed women, have been brought together by Hortis (Studi sulle opere Latine del Boccaccio, 1879, pp. 70 et seq.).  Boccaccio admired fair and abundant wavy hair, dark and delicate eyebrows, and brown or even black eyes.  It was not until some centuries later, as Hortis remarks, that Boccaccio’s ideal woman was embodied by the painter in the canvases of Titian.

The first precise description of a famous beautiful woman was written by Niphus in the sixteenth century in his De Pulchro et Amore, which is regarded as the first modern treatise on aesthetics.  The lady described is Joan of Aragon, the greatest beauty of her time, whose portrait by Raphael (or more probably Giulio Romano) is in the Louvre.  Niphus, who was the philosopher of the pontifical court and the friend of Leo X, thus describes this princess, whom, as a physician, he had opportunities of observing accurately:  “She is of medium stature, straight, and elegant, and possesses the grace which can only be imparted by an assemblage of characteristics which are individually faultless.  She is neither fat nor bony, but succulent; her complexion is not pale, but white tinged with rose; her long hair is golden; her ears are small and in proportion with the size of her mouth.  Her brown eyebrows are semicircular, not too bushy, and the individual hairs short.  Her eyes are blue (oaesius), brighter than stars, radiant with grace and gaiety beneath the dark-brown eyelashes, which are well spaced and not too long.  The nose, symmetrical and of medium size, descends perpendicularly from between the eyebrows.  The little valley separating the nose from the upper lip is divinely proportioned.  The mouth, inclined to be rather small, is always stirred by a sweet smile; the rather thick lips are made of honey and coral.  The teeth are small, polished as ivory, and symmetrically ranged, and the breath has the odor of the sweetest perfumes.  Her voice is that of a goddess.  The chin is divided by a dimple; the whole face approximates to a virile rotundity.  The straight long neck, white and full, rises gracefully from the shoulders.  On the ample bosom, revealing no indication of the bones, arise the rounded breasts, of equal and fitting size, and exhaling the perfume of the peaches they resemble.  The rather plump hands,