Anonymous portrait of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. He was a cultured man, intelligent and full of virtue, but also exaggeratedly vain
The anecdote what I tell in this post it is quite significant in rendering the idea of the vanity of Philip the Good (1396-1467) and what a person of power could get to do a few centuries ago.
Filippo III Duke of Burgundy , called the Good, he was a cultured man, a lover of arts and letters, intelligent and gifted with an uncommon political flair but, like everyone else, he had his faults.
The chronicles describe him as a lover of pomp, devoted to the pleasures of the flesh and very vain.
Let's say exaggeratedly vain.
Here's what he did.
Due to an illness the duke, at some point in his life, was forced to completely shave his hair.
He obviously didn't like him too much and he was afraid of disfiguring himself among the others.
So it was that in 1461 he ordered all the nobles of his lands to shave their hair to zero, just like him.
However, not everyone obeyed:someone refused to carry out a provision that must have seemed, and indeed was, an unjust imposition.
The rebels, however, paid for their courage even with prison ( Photo from :alamy).