Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Yana Byers
Guest: Ulinka Rublack (St John's College, Cambridge University)
Episode: Dürer's Coats: Renaissance Men and Material Cultures of Social Recognition (CEU Press, 2025)
Date: December 15, 2025

Overview

This episode features historian Ulinka Rublack in conversation with Yana Byers about her forthcoming book, Dürer's Coats: Renaissance Men and Material Cultures of Social Recognition. The discussion centers on the iconic German artist Albrecht Dürer, the significance of dress and material culture in the Renaissance, and new frameworks for understanding social aspiration, self-representation, gender, and status in early modern Europe. Rublack’s research deepens our appreciation of how clothing—especially men’s coats—played a crucial role in shaping public identity and mediating recognition.

Main Themes and Discussion Points

1. Natalie Zemon Davis's Influence and The Book’s Origins

• Rublack describes the late Natalie Zemon Davis as foundational to her project, referencing Davis’s work on gift exchange and clothing’s role in social relationships and status:

  “The early modern world … is a world where people constitute relationships and social selves really through giving each other clothing and how the entire way in which you gain recognition … is mediated by these relationships both to people and the kind of fabrics they give you and their materiality.” (Rublack, 03:28)

• The book grew out of memorial lectures dedicated to Davis, anchoring it in a tradition of cultural and microhistory.

2. Introducing Albrecht Dürer: The Man, The Artist, The Innovator

• Rublack paints Dürer as a master of the Northern Renaissance, famous not only for his prints but for pioneering the “artist’s selfie” in painting.
• Dürer was born in 1471, died in 1528; his works traveled as far as India, and he remains a figure of global significance.

  "These three portraits in oil ... are the first full size portraits of an artist. And of course, you know, the question is why did he do that?" (Rublack, 06:45)

3. Dürer's Self-Portraiture and Social Aspiration

• Dürer's repeated self-portraits correspond with his negotiation of social status—a craftsman striving for recognition akin to scholars and nobles.
• The famous 1500 portrait reflects a convergence of personal ambition, humanist ideals, and religious humility.

  “It’s also important to say that he does stop doing that in oil in 1500. So it’s not as if he had a kind of compulsive, narcissistic selfie habit ... he was thinking about, who am I? What do I look like to others?” (Rublack, 09:37)

• The portrait’s Christ-like pose signals the assertion of divinely inspired creative genius, but his humble leather coat communicates modesty and self-awareness.

4. Methodology: Sources and Materials

• Rublack combines art historical analysis with archival records—letters, diaries, inventories, and Dürer’s own sketches:

  “For Dürer, we have a precious nine letters ... they’re just so eloquent and raw in emotion ... and we even have drawings he made of what a coat for his wife should look like and how it should be cut.” (Rublack, 13:19)

5. The Power and Meaning of Dress in the Renaissance

• Drawing on Virginia Woolf’s question—do clothes wear us or do we wear clothes?—Rublack demonstrates that clothing powerfully shapes body and identity, especially for men in social transition:

  “Dress ... really constitute[s] how we feel, how we walk, ... there’s something very powerful about dress in that way. ... I’m always very fascinated by the history of male dress, what it tells us about ... how people try to gain recognition in that society where social hierarchies were melting.” (Rublack, 14:51)

• Focus on coats: The most expensive male garment, it blossomed in elaboration and color, serving as a key vehicle for masculine self-presentation and aspiration.
• Exclusive tailoring: Clothing was intensely bespoke—materials were sourced and assembled at great effort; one might own only a single coat.

6. Materiality, Sensory Experience, and the "Thingly" Self

• The discussion explores how coats (and especially fur) act as both armor and performance, contributing to dignity and the claim for recognition in society.

  “If you wore a kind of heavy, wide garment, it ... bestows worthiness onto you. … The only way we can claim recognition is through having been told that something we’ve done is of value ... through relationship with others ... but I would also argue through a relationship with things.” (Rublack, 21:04)

• Rublack draws on philosophical debates (Hegel, Judith Butler) to argue that objects—and not just humans—mediate recognition, status, and visibility.

7. Coats, Fur, and the Making of Images

• Fur is analyzed both materially and symbolically. Dürer’s evolving depiction of fur reflects his engagement with cosmopolitan networks and patrons—finessing tactile realism and signaling economic power.

  “Fur ... hugely important for all ... [not fox, but marten, sable] ... I think what happened is that we can really track a new sensitivity through that being so part of the networks he then visualizes in portraits.” (Rublack, 26:06)

8. Shifts Over Dürer’s Lifetime—Reformation, Aging, and Changing Values

• The portrait of Willibald Perkheimer (1524) starkly contrasts earlier works: aging, honesty, and the residue of the Reformation are on display.

  “The inscription says all that will survive is ideas. You know, it's not the body, it’s not how you look, it’s not the coat. ... It’s an extraordinary image to have produced in that relationship and for us now to reckon with.” (Rublack, 31:47)

• Anxieties about mortality and physical change replace fashionable self-assertion, corresponding to larger religious and cultural shifts.

9. Rethinking the Renaissance through Material Culture

• Rublack’s approach demonstrates that the Renaissance isn’t only about abstract intellectual achievements, but a lived world of material ingenuity, cosmopolitan exchange, and bodily experience.

  “The Renaissance culture ... could really be characterized through that commitment to ingenuity, sophistication ... expresses itself absolutely through a world of things and through that engagement with materiality.” (Rublack, 34:03)

• The study of clothing and crafts, including non-European influences (featherwork), paints the period as a vibrant, globally connected, and complex juncture in human history.

Notable Quotes and Moments

• On social recognition and dress:

  “Often it’s used ... to validate you, … bestow worthiness onto you. … The only way in which you build a stable, … more stable sense of … being worthy of recognition is through relationship with others, … but I would also argue through a relationship with things.”
  —Ulinka Rublack, (21:04)

• On Dürer’s coats as social performance and masculinity:

  “It really becomes something to announce men to the world or to shelter them from it, as it were. So it constructs masculinity and it actually relates to philosophical questions ...”
  —Ulinka Rublack, (20:26)

• On fur in Dürer’s art:

  “Something happens to his treatment of fur ... I think what happened is that we can really track a new sensitivity through that being so part of the networks he then visualizes in portraits of these men.”
  —Ulinka Rublack, (26:06)

• On depictions of aging and the Reformation:

  “The inscription says all that will survive is ideas ... It's not the body, it’s not how you look, it’s not the coat. … after everything that’s happened beforehand, it’s an extraordinary image to have produced in that relationship and for us now to reckon with.”
  —Ulinka Rublack, (31:47)

• On redefining Renaissance studies:

  “The Renaissance ... could really be characterized through that commitment to ingenuity, sophistication … [it] expresses itself absolutely through a world of things and through that engagement with materiality.”
  —Ulinka Rublack, (34:03)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Natalie Zemon Davis’s influence and material gift exchange: 02:23–05:50
• Who was Albrecht Dürer? 05:50–07:11
• Dürer’s self-portraiture—status and social mobility: 07:31–12:45
• Source materials—letters, diaries, drawings: 12:45–14:48
• Dress and the rhetoric of recognition: 14:51–18:24
• Discussion of performativity and masculinity through coats: 20:09–24:35
• Fur as a social and material sign in Dürer’s art: 25:04–27:31
• Portrait of Willibald Perkheimer—aging, Reformation, and honesty: 27:31–33:22
• Material culture and rethinking the Renaissance: 33:22–36:44
• Rublack’s next project—Global history of fashion: 36:52–37:30

Closing

The conversation concludes with Rublack introducing her next project—a global history of fashion focused on 1000–1800, emphasizing the worldwide significance of material exchange and the dynamism of fashion in shaping societies.

This summary encapsulates the rich intellectual exchange between Rublack and Byers, offering listeners (and readers) a multidimensional understanding of how coats, clothing, and things were central to Renaissance selfhood, masculinity, and recognition—and continue to shape how we interpret the early modern past.