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A zibellino, flea-fur or fur tippet is a women's fashion accessory popular in the later 15th and 16th centuries. A zibellino, from the Italian word for "sable", is the Fur of a sable or marten worn draped at the neck or hanging at the waist, or carried in the hand. The plural is zibellini. Some zibellini were fitted with faces and paws of goldsmith's work with Gemstone eyes and pearl , while unadorned furs were also fashionable.Payne, Blanche: History of Costume from the Ancient Egyptians to the Twentieth Century, Harper & Row, 1965, p. 294, 321Sherrill, Tawny: "Fleas, Furs, and Fashions: Zibellini as Luxury Accessories of the Renaissance", in Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, editors, Medieval Clothing and Textiles, Volume 2, p. 121-150Diana Scarisbrick, Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery, p. 99-100
The style spread to the north and west. The traditional costume historian's term for this accessory, flea-fur, is from the German Flohpelz, coined by Wendelin Boeheim in 1894, who was the first to suggest that the furs were intended to attract fleas away from the body of the wearer. There is no historical evidence to support this claim. Italians simply called these accessories "zibellini", their word for sables and speakers of other languages called them "martens", "sables" or "ermines" in their native tongues.
The fashion for carrying zibellini died out in the first years of the 17th century, although fox, mink and other pelts were worn in similar fashion in the 19th and 20th century.Hawes, Elizabeth, Fashion is Spinach, New York, Random House, 1938
In England, when Lady Jane Grey was at the Tower of London in 1553, she had a "sable skin, with a head of gold, muffled, garnished and set with four emeralds, four turquoises, six rubies, two diamonds and five pearls; four feet of gold, each set with a turquoise, the tongue being a ruby". Another sable skin used by Jane Grey had a clock or watch attached. HMC Calendar of Manuscripts of the Marquess of Salisbury, vol. 1 (London, 1883), pp. 128–9. Both sable skins had belonged to the wives of Henry VIII.David Starkey, Inventory of Henry VIII (London, 1998), pp. 256 no. 11536, 430 no. 17535. Anne Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, sister of Catherine Parr, owned a "sabelles heade" set with 21 diamonds and a ruby in its mouth. Princely Magnificence: Court Jewels of the Renaissance (London, 1980), p. 132. Elizabeth I of England received a "Sable Skynne the hed and fourre featte of gold fully furnished with Dyamondes and Rubyes" as a New Year's Gift from the Earl of Leicester in 1585.Arnold, Janet: Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd (Maney, 1988), pp. 192, 327.
Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex holds a jewelled gold marten's head and fur in her 1570s portrait at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.Karen Hearn, Dynasties (London, 1995), p. 95. In 1578 Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox bequeathed a sable with a gold head set with diamonds to Arbella Stuart.Elizabeth Cooper, The Life and Letters of Lady Arabella Stuart, vol. 1 (London, 1886), p. 49 (as a "table"): Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1581–1590, p. 661: TNA SP 12/231 f.176. In 1606, Anne of Denmark owned "a sable head of gold with a collar or muzzle enamelled, garnished with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, with four feet, in each foot a small stone, and a ring in the mouth with a pearl", possibly inherited from Elizabeth or Mary, Queen of Scots.Diana Scarisbrick, 'Anne of Denmark's Jewellery Inventory', Archaeologia, 109 (Torquay, 1991), p. 207 no. 152, modernised here.
Bess of Hardwick sent an ermine to the Countess of Shrewsbury in July 1607, which had been a gift to her. The Countess described the zibellino as lifelike in her thank-you letter: 'with humble thanks for your Ladyship's "fayre and wellwrought Armen", which Godwilling I will keep as a great jewel both in respect of your Ladyship and her from whom your Ladyship had it, There can be nothing wrought in metal with more life'.Alison Wiggins, Bess of Hardwick's Letters (Routledge, 2017), 183–4: Linda Levy Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England (London, 1990), 70, citing Folger Shakespeare Library, X.d.428 (118), modernised here
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