What type of headgear is shown in this Renaissance portrayal of Hell?
score:2
I think this is almost certainly a biretta. I think this is either a Moiré hat or possibly a chaperon variant. Fra Angelico lived from 1395 to 1455, in Florence. At the time it seems that headgear was fairly fashionable and is well known from paintings.
If you look at his works (many can be found on wikimedia), he has painted a number of different headgear on various persons, including those worn by commoners, so he was certainly familiar with the current styles and painted what he saw around him. It would seem that at the time headgear was transitioning from the common hood into various styles of hat, both brimmed and unbrimmed, but usually round in configuration and without points. A complicated hat known as a Chaperon was also used, but this usually involved having a cape (known as a patte in French and Foggia in Italian) which was tied around the hat and/or under the chin.
I mention these to indicate that none of these look at all like the tri-corn hat shown in the Last Annunciation, and that he painted other hats in greater detail in this work, as seen here:
Source:Fra Angelico, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
If you look at the foreground of the main panel (bottom third) you can see the living (as opposed to the dead saints with halos in the top 2/3), the living are being sorted into those going to heaven (left, escorted by angels and shown with what could be described as progenitor halos) and those going to hell (right with demons). In these masses you can see several different styles of hat, including caps, chaperons and religious head-gear (mitre?) and monks' hoods. Now, all these are in the main panel, and as such you should expect them to be painted in greater detail as the artist would generally focus on the main object of the work (i.e. the centre panel, with the assumption taking place), rather than on the side panels. However, notably none of these hats look at all like the ones in the side panel part being asked about by you.
Caps: 
Chaperons: 
Mitres: 
Hood: 
So - we know that Fra Angelico was well aware of the hats and the styles worn by various people, and that he knew the significance of what people wore which styles of hat. In addition, we can see that he has religious people being sent to hell (he was a priest after all, and even beatified in the 1980's). So, the hats in question could well be biretta on priests, put there as an edification for the viewer to show that even the "good" could fall to the wiles of evil. From a comment by @DamionKeeling, the characters wearing the hats have long hair, this likely indicates they are not priests after all, but rather either scholars or gentlemen.
I have found an excellent resource called "The Mode in Hats and Headdresses" by R. Turner Wilcox, which as illustrations of many of the styles found throughout history of the Western and Middle Eastern world. This is only publicly available through the following link on Archive.org as far as I can tell, but is easily viewable if you have an account.
Notably on pages 50--52, there are illustrations of hats from the 1300s through to the 1500s. Of particular note are two illustrations, which I have screen-shot and provide below, with the captions associated with each.
From this, I lean towards a Moiré hat, but the voluminous chaperon is also a distinct possibility.
More post
- 📝 Why didn't Turkish become an official language in former Ottoman colonies in the Middle-East and North Africa?
- 📝 Why was the morale of El Cid's troops always so high?
- 📝 The history of US land grant universities and interpreting the Morrill Act
- 📝 Did Leon Trotsky get stopped by authorities in Halifax?
- 📝 Why is artist Heinrich Kley's death date unknown?
- 📝 Did the Germans lose the U-Boat war in World war II because of a shortage of quality, rather than quantity?
- 📝 Surrender Ceremonies at the End of WW2: What happened after documents signed?
- 📝 Buying/Renting/Leasing houses during history?
- 📝 Is there a confirmed historic record of using "non-standard" live animals for military purposes?
- 📝 Why did the Patrice Lumumba University eject Carlos the Jackal?
- 📝 How low on ammunition were the Germans at Stalingrad when they surrendered?
- 📝 When did the Soviets get the ability to drop a nuclear bomb on the United States?
- 📝 What devices used computer-like programs in industrial era?
- 📝 Was the 1852 Richard/Bolcoff divorce the first one in California?
- 📝 What happened to the Soviet emissaries at the siege of Budapest?
- 📝 When did passenger ships first have an on board duty-free shop?
- 📝 How many crew for the LT vz 38?
- 📝 Where there any female soldiers in the Soviet army who partook in the mass rapes in eastern Germany?
- 📝 What is the largest mutiny in human history?
- 📝 What happened to Soviet citizens on Finnish territory before and during winter war?
- 📝 Who said, "Watch your thoughts, they become your words"?
- 📝 When & what are the first recorded peacetime uses of soldiers?
- 📝 Why was a gold standard not stipulated in the U.S. Constitution?
- 📝 Why did Argentina invade the Falklands when they did, rather than wait for the pending sale of the UK aircraft carriers to complete first?
- 📝 Why did Shock Therapy fail so badly?
- 📝 When did h*m*sexuality become unacceptable in Europe?
- 📝 Did Lee Harvey Oswald receive any medals or ribbons?
- 📝 When was encrypted voice over radio first used?
- 📝 Why did the Byzantines not try to recover Syria during the war between Ali and Muawiya?
- 📝 Was Hagia Sophia built over a pagan temple?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What type of headgear is shown in this Renaissance portrayal of Hell?
- 📝 What type of ancient Chinese headgear is this and what more do we know about it?
- 📝 What is the spiral-looking device shown in this wall painting?
- 📝 What type of plane is this wreck?
- 📝 Does anyone know what type of structure this is?
- 📝 What is this war machine shown on Trajan's column?
- 📝 What do the insignias on the collar shown in this photograph stand for?
- 📝 What is the purpose of this Roman siege tactic as shown in this Illustration?
- 📝 Any idea what type of 1920-1930s tank this is?
- 📝 What type of warship is this (likely WW2)?
- 📝 What were the reasons for the Renaissance / scientific revolution in Europe?
- 📝 What mysterious Flemish peasant activity is depicted in this painting?
- 📝 What is the logic for the map maker classifying the map this way, specifically in Canada?
- 📝 What do the numbers on this 1960s anti-integration sign mean?
- 📝 Did Rothschild say this famous quote? If yes, what did he mean by it?
- 📝 What is this symbol in a financial record from Wisconsin, USA, in 1860?
- 📝 What is the date and original source of this medieval picture?
- 📝 What coin is this and where is it from? Thai script, Thai arms. Rev: left facing portrait
- 📝 In what way were Renaissance battles like chess matches?
- 📝 What are the text and subtext of this 1949 Soviet cartoon?
- 📝 What is the object moving across the ceiling in this stock footage?
- 📝 What is this household object from early 1900s rural Russia?
- 📝 Anyone know what this stone building is?
- 📝 In this cartoon from Puck, what indicates the identities of France and Britain?
- 📝 What is this strange symbol painted on bas*m*nt floor?
- 📝 What is this military patch with the silhouette of a pegasus on it?
- 📝 What is the primary source for this quote by Julius Caesar's on Celts and Germans?
- 📝 Who are the three men standing and what are they holding at this University of Paris Doctors' Meeting?
- 📝 What era is this German 10 DM banknote from?
- 📝 What's the festival shown in this illustration?