Thrust - A Spasmodic Pictorial History of the Codpiece

A laugh-out-loud visual history of the strangest piece of men-s clothing ever created: the codpiece. The codpiece was fashioned in the Middle Ages to close a revealing gap between two separate pieces of men-s tights. By the sixteenth century, it had become an upscale must-have accessory. This light-hearted, illustrated examination of its history pulls in writers from Rabelais to Shakespeare and figures from Henry VIII to Alice Cooper. Glover-s witty and entertaining prose reveals how male vanity turned a piece of cloth into a bulging and absurd representation of masculinity itself. The codpiece, painted again and again by masters such as Titian, Holbein, Giorgione, and Bruegel, became a symbol of royalty, debauchery, virility, and religious seriousness-all in one. Never has a piece of clothing revealed so much about men only by hiding their private parts. Glover-s book moves from paintings to contemporary culture and back again as it charts the growing popularity of the codpiece and it