iiciurnteii li 
 
 %tt iH a i £ s t ij (Qnmi |H o r ix ij r r i t a 
 
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Ulrich Middeldorf 
 
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 pueen of Jfalg. 
 Your Majesty, 
 
 . l \ taliped across my mi 
 TOM work of our Lace Q 
 
 any words were in my heart and were floating uncrys- 
 mind — with which to dedicate the 
 )f our Lace Committee and this little guide book 
 I to Your Majesty — when my eyes rested upon the 
 following lines, by Aurelio Passerotti, at the beginning 
 of his Pattern book for noble lace makers, the only known copy 
 of which belongs to Count Nerio Malve\j{i of Bologna. — In them 
 are mirrored all my thoughts, gracefully clothed in that old time 
 phraseology which is as intricately and delicately wrought as the 
 subtile fabric to whose treasury it serves as key, and whose gracious 
 mistress it so respectfully lauds. 
 
 I therefore pray Your Majesty to accept this tribute made in a 
 past epoch, to another Royal Margherita who, in that portion of 
 the land oner which she reigned, loved to protect and to encourage 
 the arts of peace, as does Your Majesty throughout United Italy: 
 
Digitized by 
 
 the Internet Archive 
 
 
 
 in 2014 
 
 
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PREFACE. 
 
 his is not only a guide-book descriptive of the unique col- 
 lection of antique laces from all parts of the world ex- 
 hibited in the Italian section of the Woman's Building at the 
 World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago during 
 ?$ | the summer of i8q3, and kindly lent by Our Most Gra- 
 ^ ^ cious Queen Marghcrita, and the ladies of Italy, whose 
 names follow on the list of Directresses and Patronesses: 
 
 It opens with a description of every kind of lace-like fabric, and 
 forms a complete and succinct history of lace from its origin to the 
 present day ; it contains a biographical sketch of those artists who 
 have entrusted to us their finest productions — all of which are lor 
 sale — that there might be a worthy framing to the rarer laces. 
 
 It also has appended — compiled by the editor a list of the 
 books exhibited, which form a small and interesting library, with 
 a complete collection of antique designs for lace-makers and em- 
 broiderers, placed, for reference and study, at the disposal of those 
 visitors whom they may interest. 
 
 Finally and above all, it contains descriptive notices of all the 
 Lace Schools and Lace Manufacturies in Italy, founded or directed 
 by women, with which the Committee has been able to communi- 
 cate in the short time between its organization and the shipping of 
 
8 
 
 the exhibit to Chicago ; these notices are illustrated by photographs 
 and very complete albums of samples, as well as by large quan- 
 tities of the laces Italian women produce, all of which are for sale 
 with immediate delivery. For any information, or for the purchase 
 of books or laces, visitors are requested to address themselves to 
 the lady attendant, remembering that every piece of lace sold — 
 however insignificant it may seem — means at least one hearty meal 
 for some poor and industrious woman, some fatherless, dumb, or 
 crippled child in Italy. 
 
Phut I. 
 
 introduction. 
 
 ^ kscriptiuc ©numeration of tljr mast CCclcltratci* Jaws 
 of tljc |Ia$t. 
 
 For a clear understanding of any chapter of the second part or history 
 of lace making, without reading the one preceding it, it is necessary to tho- 
 roughly comprehend and impress upon the mind the following terms and 
 their meanings, remembering that the older and kindred arts from which lace- 
 making sprang are very nearly allied to it, and often produce such similar ef- 
 fects that it is impossible for the uninitiated to distinguish between them. 
 
 I. — Passamano or Passamenterie. 
 
 (Gimp and Knotted Fringes or Trimmings). 
 
 Their Manufacture. 
 
 These trimmings or adornments are now made by means of a long, nar- 
 row, bolster-shaped cushion screwed to a table; on this cushion the fringed-out 
 stuff, or a foundation cord, is held in place by large-headed pins round which 
 the threads that are to form the fringe or edging are knotted in various patterns ; 
 in the coarser work the fingers alone suffice to tie the the knots, but for finer 
 effects the use of the crochet needle is necessarx . To prepare a textile for its 
 conversion into an ornamental knotted border, the woof threads are drawn 
 out, leaving a portion of the warp of the width required for the fringe, the 
 selvage is cut away and the threads are knotted as desired. Extra tassels are 
 sometimes added for a finish. 
 
 Different I 'arieties. 
 
 Macrailie is a modification of the ordinary passamenterie. Different 
 kinds of macrame are known as: 
 
 Punto a Groppo, — knotted point. 
 
 2 
 
1(1 
 
 Punio Moresco, — or Moorish point. 
 
 Punto a Groppo incordonato, — or corded, knotted point. The above 
 are all terms used by the Venetians for this class of work. 
 
 II. — RETE (Net) and Maglia (Knitting, . 
 
 Manufacture of Knitting. 
 
 The Italians have one generic term for the single stitches of both, viz., 
 
 "Maglia,, Knitting. — {Punto a Maglia) is made with two long, blunt 
 
 needles of wood, steel or bone, held one in each hand: over them a thread is 
 
 knotted in and out continuously, until a flexible, elastic material is formed 
 
 which is more or less ornate according to the object for which it is destined, 
 
 and to the fancv of the knitter. 
 
 « 
 
 Manufacture of Net. 
 
 Rete (Net) — is made by means of a wooden, brass or bone needle, bi- 
 forcated at either end, around which the thread or cord is wound ; a little stick 
 is also used, the width of which must be half the depth of the stitches or 
 meshes required. The end of the netting cord or thread, is knotted in a loop 
 to a solid peg; holding the stick in the left hand, the needle charged with the 
 cord is passed around the stick through the loop and in and out again through 
 the first twist made, which is held in place by the stick and thus forms a knot. 
 The stick is then removed and another mesh is begun. 
 
 Different Varieties. 
 
 Frivolite — tatting. For this, the little stick is replaced by the fingers 
 of the left hand and more complicated knots of different varieties are made. 
 
 ModailO — a very ancient net lace that is made without any embroi- 
 dery and is quite artistic in effect. The meshes of Modano may be large or small, 
 round, square or shell-shaped, according to the size and form of the stick 
 which is held in the left hand, and the number of meshes taken or skipped 
 in knotting into the row above. This netting can be varied indefinitely ; it is 
 often very pretty, and to the untrained eye, it greatly resembles some of the 
 varieties of pillow lace. 
 
1 1 
 
 Manufacture of Lacis. 
 
 Merletto a Maglia or Maglietta, LACIS. — (Net Laces')-, 
 
 Merletto a Maglia (Juadrata (Square Net Lace) ; 
 
 Merletto a Retine ricamate (Embroidered Net Lace)] 
 
 These are all terms used for the embroidered nets that were so much the 
 fashion in the middle ages. — After making the meshes of the desired size and 
 to the desired number, the fabric is firmly sewn to a metal frame covered with 
 tape to keep il perfectly stretched, as the beauty and regularity of the work 
 depend greatly on this; it is then embroidered with a needle and thread in dif- 
 ferent stitches, such as darning, whe.'l, and button hole stitch. 
 
 III. Punto Tirato or Punto Disfatto — (Drawn Work). 
 
 Punto Tagliato (Cut Work). 
 
 These titles comprise all the earliest needle laces; the most elaborate va- 
 rieties might really be treated as Point Laces if judged simply by their appear- 
 ance ; these laces are worked in linen on lawn. 
 
 Manufacture of Bur a to. 
 
 Burato is an embroidery in which drawn work-, outlining and cross- 
 stitch are combined. It is made on finely spun though coarsely woven fabrics; 
 and was used for underwear and household linen. 
 
 Punto in Stuora — (Sheeting or Curtain Stitch), TRAPUNTO. 
 
 This is made with silk or thread forming what people commonly call .SY- 
 cilian embroidery or Lace; the ground of this lace, instead of being drawn 
 and embroidered in the textile, is often made with bobbins the threads of 
 which form a kind of very coarse, twisted gauze or fine net, on which the 
 designs are afterwards embroidered. 
 
 Punto Tagliato or Cut Work. — The design for this work was 
 first traced on a piece of linen which was then drawn very smoothly over a 
 leaf of parchment attached to a hard cushion called a w baton ., , and firmly 
 basted down. Then a coarse thread was served over the carefully traced outline 
 and a Punto a Festone, or button-hole stitch, was worked over this round 
 
12 
 
 the entire design. Then very carefully cutting away the intervening material 
 that none of the threads composing the stitching might be frayed, double paral- 
 lel threads were drawn from angle to angle in the empty spaces; these threads 
 were intercrossed and button-holed to enrich the design, or they were caught 
 around pins at the border, forming an edging of purled loops called Cecchetti 
 and Smerli. 
 
 Different varieties. 
 
 Pimto Calabrese (Calabrian Work) very closely resembles the 
 last, but is adorned with high reliefs. 
 
 IV. — Punto a Reticella or Radixeli — (Net Point). 
 
 Manufacture of Reticella. 
 
 This is a combination of drawn and cut work; no design is traced, but the 
 threads of the linen are counted and drawn out in such a manner as to form al- 
 ternate squares from which the warp is then cut away and the remaining threads 
 are used as a foundation which is button-holed over, the spaces being filled 
 as in punto tagliato with fancy stitches. 
 
 Pliilto Slirana was a kind of Reticella with oriental designs. 
 
 Pimto Greco and Punto di Zante were names given Reticella 
 coming from Greece and the Archipelago. 
 
 Punto Reale or Royal point, was the contrary of Reticella, although 
 executed in the same manner, for in it the linen ground was left and the design 
 was made by cutting, and then filling in the open spaces with fancy stitches. 
 
 Punto di Cartella or Cordelia — (Card Work) is a lace having 
 a similar effect to that of Reticella, but instead of having the ground made by 
 drawn work in linen, the button-holeing is done entirely on a foundation made 
 by sewing coarse threads and bits of parchment basted upon a most carefully 
 drawn design, and then covering these with button-hole stitch. 
 
 Reticella edgings. 
 
 Punto d'Arcato --(Arched Point). When the loops or smerli of the 
 edge became deep and more ornate they received this distinctive appellation. 
 
13 
 
 Punti Fiamenghi (Flemish Points). These were rectangular and 
 therefore rather broad and shallow. They were often alternated in two sizes 
 and always retained the same form. 
 
 Pllllto Spagllliolo — (Spanish Point) was like the preceding, save 
 that the points were all of the same size and much longer narrower and more 
 pointed, and surrounded by elaborate small sinerli. 
 
 Pllllto GaetailO was a combination of Spanish and Flemish Points 
 attached together by smerli at one third or half their depth ; they were filled 
 in with the usual stitches, thus producing a varied effect which resembled a dou- 
 ble row of smcrlatura or turretting. There were many other fancy stitches 
 generally known in Italy at the beginning of the sixteenth century which con- 
 tinued in use after the introduction of the real points or needle laces without 
 foundation of textiles, as for example: 
 
 Punto Daiiiaschino or Damascus Point. 
 
 Pllllto a Filo or Pllllto a FestoilO a variety of button-hole stitch. 
 Punto Rilovato Raised stitch or stitch in relief. 
 Pllllto Sopra Pllllto a loop stitch in relief. 
 
 Punto Ingarseato (gau\e stitch) used as filling. 
 
 Punto Ciprioto, with an effect resembling the open work ground in 
 Greek and Turkish embroidery. 
 
 Pllllto Pllgliese, which resembled Russian and Roumanian embroi- 
 dery. 
 
 In fact wherever lace was made there were local terms used, as is the 
 case in every other industry. 
 
 V. — Point Laces. 
 
 Manufacture of Point Lace. 
 
 This variety of lace is made entirely with the needle, and is as susceptible 
 to the surrounding influences of climate, peoples and national characteristics as 
 are the architecture, sculpture and painting of different countries. This delicate 
 art is indeed so sensitive to change that, strange as it may seem, the same 
 
patterns wrought by lace-makers of neighbouring towns and villages produce 
 entirely dissimilar effects. Some general rules are however necessary; the design 
 must first be very carefully drawn upon a piece of parchment which has been so 
 tinted as to form a dark back-ground, and a large thread, or several fine threads, 
 twisted together, must be sewn with great exactness round the edges of all 
 the flowers, scrolls and other figures of the design as a foundation, using as 
 few stitches in this sewing as possible, all the figures of the design are then 
 filled in between the outlining threads, with close and varied stitches; the 
 ground is made of meshes, (tulle stitch) like Burano Point, or of purled gui- 
 pure like Venetian Point and lastly the foundation threads which follow the 
 edges of the design are more or less elaboratly button-holed over to form the 
 reliefs. The lace is detached carefully from the parchment foundation by cutting 
 the fastening threads, and the different pieces composing the desired length 
 are sewed together, the finishing touches being added by an especially skilled 
 worker. In the making of point lace the needle women are usually divided 
 into six sections to each of which a different portion of the work is allotted 
 such a grounding, tulling, etc., thus affording not only greater rapidity, but 
 also more skilled and practised workmanship. 
 
 Pimto di Venezia or Venetian Point, also called Parchment Lace. 
 
 This is a comprehensive term under which the following varieties of nee- 
 dle laces with open grounds are known ; the Punto di Venecia differs from 
 the Punto in Aria in having the scrolls farther apart, is more insignificant in 
 design and is surrounded by button-hole stitch. 
 
 Varieties of Venetian Point. 
 
 Punto in Aria (Lace woven in air). In this lace the flowers, scrolls 
 and designs of animals were wrought with very fine thread in varied open 
 work with very small stitches, the threads forming the foundation were but- 
 ton-holed over before the filling of the designs, and the whole was held in place, 
 where the design did not connect the parts, with button- holed purled loops or 
 guipure bars. 
 
 Punto ad Avorio {Ivory Point) was a variety of the above with 
 designs copied from the beautiful flowered scrolls of the intarsia (inlaid) work 
 of the sixteenth century; it was made with very close stitches and low relief 
 which producing a Solid effect caused it to look as if carved in ivory. 
 
 Punto dei Nobili or Carnival Lace was especially manufactured 
 for marriages, births .and grand family or civic festivals. Its designs pictured 
 warriors on foot or on horseback, hunts, castles, towns, animals, cardinals' 
 
15 
 
 hats and princely crowns, gods, goddesses and mermaids; in fact nearly every 
 kind of obiect real or imaginary. In case of a treaty or a marriage the arms of 
 the contracting parties were liberally introduced into the design. 
 
 Punto tagliato a Fogliame (Flowered Lace). 
 
 This is a lace composed of scrolls and flowers that seem literally carved 
 in flax; it is the richest Point lace ever invented and formerly was made in 
 silk, gold and silver as well as thread. Using the Punto in Aria as a foundation, 
 stitches are made upon stitches and row is superadded upon row ofbutton- 
 holeing. The flowers were formely packed with horse-hair instead of with 
 thread that they might stand out in fuller, richer reliefs, detaching themselves 
 more perfectly from the ground- work or foundation. Thousands upon thou- 
 sands of microscopic loops — sometimes five or six rows deep — more re- 
 sembling the perfect flowers and fairy landscapes created by hoar frost than the 
 work of even the daintiest human fingers, were then, — with infinite patience 
 — made all round the edges of those wonderful flowers and scrolls, and upon 
 the insides and pinnacles of every relief. Modifications of this celebrated lace, 
 sung by poets, described by historians and a source of commercial rivalry 
 between powerful potentates, were know n as: 
 
 Punto di Spaglia, point made in Spain. 
 
 Grand point de France also called, Point Colbert from the 
 prime minister of Louis XIV who introduced it into his country from Venice. 
 
 Punto Neve (Snow Point), which was very beautiful with its ground 
 of starred threads that resembled flakes of snow. 
 
 Punto di Rosa (Rose Point). The bars of this lace wore placed 
 close and firm, forming a regular sexagonal net-work, with innumerable raised 
 flowers and tiny scrolls. 
 
 Punto a Foglianie (Leaf Point), with graceful tendrils predomi- 
 nating in the design and many loops upon their edges. 
 
 Punto a Gioie (Jewelled Point), which is frequent) mentioned bj 
 old writers though no example of it is left for the instruction of the industrial 
 artists of to day. It was into this lace that pearls and other gems and even the 
 Venetian beads, that so closely resembled gems, were introduced with most 
 gorgeous effect; these laces were also varied by using silk, gold and silver 
 instead of linen thread. 
 
1 6 
 
 Burano Point and the Laces to which it gape origin. 
 
 Punto cli Burano is so called from the place of its manufacture, Bu- 
 rano, an island of the lagoon east of Venice. This flowered point lace with a 
 gauze ground was very highly prized; and the following celebrated laces were 
 all copied from it. 
 
 Argentella. A fine needle point lace resembling the Burano Point 
 but with a curious kind of spider-web ground introduced. Mrs. Bury says it 
 was invented in Genoa, but I am inclined to believe that it is the Italian term 
 for early Argentan Lace, for there are no proofs of point lace making having 
 flourished in that city. 
 
 Point d'Alencon and Point d' Argentan. 
 
 The manufacture of these laces was introduced into France under Louis XIV, 
 through the importation — at great expense — of Italian lace-makers to teach 
 their art to the lace makers of France, who of course modified it. These laces, 
 copied from antique designs, are now produced in as great perfection in the 
 cooperative lace schools of Burano as they were a hundred years ago at the 
 time of their greatest glory in France. 
 
 Point d'Alencon has the same squarish mesh ground as Burano 
 Point, but it is not quite so fine as is that of the early Buranese specimens; 
 the foundation contours of the reliefs were frequently formed with horse-hair 
 covered by the usual button-hole stitch and purled. 
 
 Point d' Argentan. The ground meshes of this lace are larger than 
 those of the Point d'Alencon, their hexagonal form is perfect, and is frequently 
 composed entirely of microscopic button-holeing; the flower designs have a 
 much closer filling and the open work spaces are larger and more varied in 
 their stitches than those of Point d'Alencon. 
 
 Vieux Point de Bruxelles — {Old Brussels Point) exactly re- 
 sembles the earliest Burano Point, the only real difference is that its ground 
 stitch is slightly rounder than in Burano Point. 
 
 Mixed Points. 
 
 * 
 
 Point de Bruxelles {Modern Brussels Lace) is composed of flow- 
 ers, scrolls and ribbons of needle point sewed upon a fine, machine-made 
 tulle which is cut out beneath the flowers, and the whole is so perfectly darned 
 together that the lace appears as \f made in one piece. 
 
17 
 
 Point Plat in Brussels Lace is so called when the flowers and scrolls 
 transferred to the net are, like Honiton Lace, made entirely with bobbins. 
 
 Duchesse Lace or Point d' Application resembles the Brus- 
 sels Point Plat, the only difference being that in the Duchcsse Lace the tulle 
 foundation is not cut away. The tulle or meshes in old Brussels bobbin 
 
 lace are hexagonal in form; four of the sides of the mesh are composed of 
 two threads twisted together twice, and two of the sides are composed of four 
 threads plaited together four times. 
 
 Honiton or English Point is like the Duchesse Lace; or else if 
 the work woman is to make an all-over design of flowers, she executes the 
 parts separately, and they are afterwards connected by purled bars. 
 
 English Needle Lace has never been manufactured in large quan- 
 tities; it was always copied from Italian, French or Belgian Lace and therefore 
 has no distinctive terminology. 
 
 In the last twenty years a lace composed of narrow, machine or hand- 
 made braid and point lace stitches has become fashionable in England as fancy 
 work; some of the designs are very good and the stitches are pleasantly varied. 
 This lace is really a revival of PuntO di Ragusa, but is much less artistic 
 and has a meagre appearence. It is generally known as Point without any other 
 definition, and sometimes is called Braided Lace; in Italy it is known as Gui- 
 pure a Spighetla Inglese or English Braided Guipure. 
 
 Venetian Guipure, was a Mixed Point Lace. The scroll work and 
 flowers were outlined in pillow lace; then the designs were filled in and reliefs 
 were made with the needle, the ground being connected by purled bars; this 
 lace was sometimes made in silk. 
 
 Turkish Point, a fine needle lace made on the edge of stuffs, is ar- 
 tistic and very original. It is composed entirely of the stitch of the PuntO in Aria 
 without button-holing, or ground, or connecting loops. It is made in imitation 
 of flowers and fruits in their natural colours, or all of white silk with gold and 
 silver threads. At other times it forms a narrow edging composed of simple, geo- 
 metric designs. 
 
 Irish Point, is made on fine lawn by stitching a coarse thread all 
 round the design and then cutting out the ground work, filling in the open 
 spaces sometimes with connecting loops and knots and at other times with 
 Punto in Aria. 
 
 Broiderie des Illdes, — when Indian muslin scarfs — with their 
 exquisite ^>pen work lace stitches, were introduced into Europe, — all laces 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 made on a muslin ground, received this name; even though produced prior to 
 the origin of this fashion; some specimens of this embroidery, made in the se- 
 venteenth and eighteenth century, look exactly like Venetian or Burano point 
 lace. 
 
 Irish Guipure, is made with a crochet needle and fine linen thread; 
 its designs are copied from the best old patterns, and it is frequently very 
 artistic. 
 
 VI. - Merletto a Fuselli. (Bobbin Lace). 
 
 How Manufactured. 
 
 Merletto a Tombola. {Pillow Lace), or Merletto a Piombiiii. 
 
 — This lace derives its name, from the word " Piombare „ which signifies to 
 hang vertically. It can he made of cotton, flax, fibre, or gold and silver thread. 
 In its fabrication a quantity of threads are interwoven in various stitches ; 
 the meshes and openings or " a giorni „ in the design are made by introducing 
 pins into it and twisting threads about them in diverse ways; as in Point 
 lace, the effects produced are varied, but the system employed is always 
 the same; round a roller-shaped cushion, which is stuffed with chopped 
 hay, saw-dust, or wool, and is covered with some dark woollen stuff, is care- 
 fully stretched the design which has first been drawn upon stiff paper and 
 then pricked out along the outline. — Then the cushion is placed upon a 
 little rest, shaped to fit it on the one side, and to fit the laces on the other, or 
 it is placed upon a stand in front of the work woman, or grasped between the 
 knees. From right to left, the thread is wound rapidly upon the bobbins and 
 tied at the top in a loop that permits it to gradually slip off the bobbin when 
 it is pulled — as occurs continuously, in working. The bobbins themselves are 
 all cylinders of wood with a knob at the top. All the threads are then at- 
 tached to hat pins which have been stuck firmly into the cushion to give a 
 good purchase hold, and the lace maker is ready to go to work. 
 
 She begins by interlacing the bobbins, which are used in pairs, and by 
 placing small pins in all the perforations, crossing the bobbins after the inser- 
 tion of each pin. The bobbins not in use are kept from becoming entangled, 
 by large hat-pins that hold them back on either side of the design. Sometimes 
 a coarse thread follows the entire outline to make it more effective and 
 marked. 
 
 The throwing back of certain bobbins so as to leave them out in the mid- 
 dle of a flower or scroll, and the taking them back into the design, after an 
 interval, produces the raised work that is called Punto riportato sopra. As Ihe 
 manufacture of the lace proceeds — being worked from left to right and right 
 
19 
 
 to left — alternately — the furthermost pins are removed to be re-used in the 
 holes as required; and the lace becoming detached from the cushion may be cut 
 off at any length desired. A coarse thread is sometimes run round the design, 
 with a needle; it is afterwards finished and entirely removed from the cushion. 
 
 Guipure from Guip. 
 
 Guipure. — Guiper is a very old verb meaning to roll a thread 
 round a card. In the early part of the sixteenth century lace always contained 
 a guip that formed the pattern which, together with the term has been preserved 
 although card or parchment has long fallen into disuse; the name of Guipure, 
 in modern parlance, is applied to any lace with Geometrical designs, con- 
 ventionalized flowers, or arabesques held together by a grounding of purled 
 loops or bars, in contradistinction to other laces that are made with an all over 
 net ground. 
 
 Wtrieties of Guipure. 
 
 Bobbin laces are easily and rapidly executed ; — they are therefore made 
 all over the civilized world, with perpetual reduplication and yet with almost en- 
 dless variety in design. Some of the most celebrated among these Guipures are: 
 
 Maltese Point, or Punio di Malta, from which the famous Genoese 
 Guipure was copied; its designs were always highly ornamental, and its edge 
 was composed of very deep indentations — much resembling the decorations 
 of the Alhambra; it will be remembered that flowers and animals were never 
 pictured in early Arabian work, they are therefore absent from all lace inspired 
 ' by designs by Mahometan artists. 
 
 Guipure di Genoa, is, as has been indicated, the counterpart of 
 Punto di Malta. 
 
 Pllllto di Genoa — also sometimes called Guipure de Milano, so 
 greatly resembles Milanese and Neapolitan Points that if is easily confounded 
 with them, — the chief difference being that the scroll work of the design in 
 the Genoese as in the Spanish Flat Guipure, consists of a broader, more va- 
 ried ribbon. A very fine variety of this is called fllgio (meaning I Jlee) from 
 its running scrolls and airy quality. In all these laces, a crochet needle is used 
 to join the bars and design; one thread is drawn through a pin-hole in the lace, 
 thus forming a loop, and then the knot is closed by passing the free bobbin of 
 the pair through this loop and tightening. 
 
 Guipure Fiamengo, (or Flemish Guipure) cannot be distinguised, 
 save by experts from, Spanish flat lace. Varieties of this lace were made all 
 
20 
 
 over Europe and were introduced into the Colonies of Italy, Spain and Portu- 
 gal, by the Jews. 
 
 Russian Lace and Hungarian Lace — are varieties of the Flem- 
 ish Guipure but follow the same principles in their manufacture. 
 
 Punto di Ragusa, was made like the Genoese and Milanese laces, 
 save that its ribbon of bobbin lace was edged on one or both sides with a thick 
 cord sometimes increased in size — as in the Venetian Point — by winding 
 thread around, or by button-holing over the edge of the braid after basting a 
 cord upon it. Venetian and Ragusa Guipures are often considered identical, 
 but they are very different in execution, — the Punto di Ragusa having a de- 
 cidedly Byzantine effect. 
 
 Merletto Greco, o Greek Guipure has also one or two cords fol- 
 lowing the curves of the braid, but its effect is much less rich and heavy than 
 that of the Punto di Ragusa. 
 
 Cartisane is one of the earliest and rarest of lace Guipures; it was 
 made of a coarse net consisting of four twists and then four plaits made with 
 the bobbin. Through this were worked simple and artistic Arabesque designs 
 consisting of or more strips of thick paper or vellum each wound with fine silk 
 to resemble a ribbon. The edge of the lace were straight and unornamented ; 
 as this lace did not wash well, it was soon abandoned. 
 
 Punto di Rapallo, or Liguria, is formed by a ribbon or braid 
 of close lace following the outline of the design, with fancy gauze stitches 
 made by knotting with a crochet needle and forming quaint geometrical 
 reliefs. The special characteristic of this lace, is that the braid is constant- 
 ly thrown over what has gone before, thus forming large loops in the 
 scrolls. The parts of the design are held together by purled Guipure " brides „ 
 or bars. 
 
 Punto a Vermicelli, is a modification of the Punto di Rapallo 
 — in which the braid is made very fine and narrow, the turnings are extremely 
 complicated, there are no fancy stitches between. 
 
 Merletto Policliroine or Parti-coloured lace was invented and 
 perfected by the Jews, and was made in silk of different colours representing 
 fruits and flowers; This industry has been revived in Venice and carried to 
 great perfection. 
 
2 1 
 
 VII. — Pillow Laces With Net and Mixed Grounds. 
 
 The most celebrated of these laces arc all known under the general name 
 of Flanders Point, and many of them are as fine as the subtlest webs. 
 
 I 'arieties. 
 
 Point d'Angleterre is a superb and especially fine variety of Brus- 
 sels Pillow lace with mixed ground. It is characterized by a raised rib of plaited 
 threads worked at the same time as the edge of the lace; this rib outlines all 
 the veillings and other salient points of the design, rendering it beautifully 
 artistic. It generally represents garlands and other floral designs," and sometimes 
 birds, figures and architectural details are introduced. It owes its name to hav- 
 ing been originaly made to be smuggled into England and sold there as English 
 lace, and was of a type entirely different from the original old Brussels Pillow 
 lace. It was widely known and especially appreciated in France and Italy, always 
 retaining however its distinctive appellation. The mesh of which its ground 
 is composed is hexagonal, with four of the sides of two threads twisted tw ice, 
 and two of the sides consisting of four threads plaited four times. 
 
 Mechlin or Malinos, is so named from the Flemish town where it 
 is manufactured. It has a very fine mesh, sexagonal in form, with four of its 
 sides made by twisting two threads together twice, and four threads all plaited 
 together three times to foVm the other two sides. The ground is generally strew- 
 ed with tiny spots, flowers or leaves, surrounded by a coarse thread. Flow- 
 ers or leaves, or both alternated, form the pattern along the heading, and the 
 edge is more or less undulated according to the design of the flower border. — 
 The old designs were sometimes rendered more elaborate by introducing 
 vases, flowers, hearts and other details, with open work centres, but even 
 these always retained the detached and self repeating composition characteristic 
 of this lace after the middle of the seventeenth century. 
 
 Old Flemish Point — properly so called — was made with a very 
 loose ground resembling squarish cob -webs with round pin-holes between 
 the close parts to outline the design. It had a running design of conventionalized 
 fruit and flowers frequently interlaced with a ribbon design which contained 
 open work and added lightness to the whole effect. Its edge was straight, 
 with tiny purls. 
 
 Trollo Kant, — resembles the Old Flemish Point, but its ground is 
 clearer, with rounder reliefs, and the designs are surrounded by a coarse thread 
 or by a number of threads worked on one bobbin. The pattern is always so 
 managed as to combine with the edge of the lace and to form shallow undu- 
 lations, or is scallop finished — like all Flemish laces — with purls. 
 
22 
 
 Antique Brussels Pillow Lace. — Its designs resembled those 
 of Trolle Kant on a net ground of round or hexagonal mesh, or a combina- 
 tion of both. 
 
 Antwerp Lace, was especially celebrated for trimming caps. In 
 Antwerp, all the laces made in Brussels were imitations, but it also had an 
 especial lace of its own called Potten Kant, in which the design — a vase 
 — ■ was worked like antique Brussels — except that the net of which the ground 
 was formed consisted of triangles with hexagonal meshes or openings. 
 
 English Prolly Lace, was formerlly made in Hampshire and was 
 copied from Pollen Kant, just as the Baby Lace made in Bedford, Buck- 
 ingham, and Northampton, was a modification of the Lille Lace which 
 was sometimes called English Point de Lille. 
 
 Binche is a most exquisite, cobwebby, pillow lace from the Province 
 of Hainault, in Flanders. It contains designs of flowers, fruits and figures 
 wrought of the finest, most fairylike thread, connected by tiny rounds or discs 
 of close weaving, with meshes of insertioned threads holding the whole together 
 as through the designer had tried to picture a Dutch flower-garden in a snow 
 storm. This beautiful lace has a straight edge, and the finer qualities, being no 
 longer made, have become priceless. 
 
 Closter Spitzc (or Convent Lace). The manufacture of this lace 
 was originally confined — as the name indicates — to convents, especially to 
 those in the North of Europe. The present centre of its fabrication is Bohemia. 
 
 Its treatment and is grounding are identical with those of Binche Point, 
 but, unlike this lace it is coarse though sheer. Modified by the vicinity of Milan, 
 Closter Spitze was also made in Southern Tyrol. 
 
 Point de Bruges was the name given to a lace made in and about- 
 that historic old town. 
 
 It much resembles Malines lace, but the Arabesques of its designs were out 
 lined with several fine threads, instead of one coarse one; flowers, filled in 
 with open work, were introduced with pleasing variety. 
 
 This lace, which was very fine and sheer, was also made in silk; its 
 usual width did not exceed three to five inches. Like Antwerp Lace it was used 
 chiefly for cap trimmings. 
 
 Point de Paris. This it the name by which the exquisite pillow 
 lace made in the vicinity of Paris was known during the 18 th Century. 
 
 It is an extremely fine and dainty lace with beautiful garlands trailing 
 over the tulle and edging the flounces. This tulle is called " champ double „, 
 (double field) its mesh is round and strong, though very fine, and is pro- 
 
23 
 
 duced by doubling the quantity of threads, (using eight instead of four); Point 
 de Paris is as fine in quality as old Brussels, but it more resembles the richest 
 laces of Bruges. 
 
 Valenciennes Lace is known in all the world wherever lace is 
 used on linen. It is made with a solid square or diamond shaped mesh, platted 
 with four threads on each side. It has a somewhat stiff flower or arabesque 
 border made in close stitch along the edge, which is finished off with purls. 
 The antique Point de Valenciennes, made at the French town of that name, 
 was the most perfect pillow lace ever manufactured and was of fabulous 
 price. It is composed of the finest thread ever spun in Europe and is almost 
 indestructible. Some of the present machine-made laces are copied from its 
 most graceful designs, which much resemble those of Point de Paris ; but the 
 manufacture of this lace in Valenciennes has entirely ceased. The fabrics now 
 sold under that name are manufactured in Belgium, especially in the neighbour- 
 hood of Ypres; they are also produced in large quantities in Normandy and other 
 Provinces of France, in England, in Ireland, and in Naples. 
 
 Point de Lille; — so called from a town in northern France — is 
 a fine lace with a resemblance to MalillCS, and also to certain varieties of 
 Point d' Esprit. The old English Lace called New port-Pagncl strongly re- 
 sembles it. 
 
 Chantilly is a silk or thread pillow lace made with cither a coarse or 
 a fine tulle ground, produced without plaiting by simply twisting the threads 
 together, and is strewn with close and varied (lower designs or conventional 
 patterns surrounded by a coarse thread; the English lace of Lyme Regis some- 
 what resembles it though it is more ordinary. Since the revival in the manu- 
 facture on a large scale of lace in France, — every kind of silk or thread lace 
 is made, or its production abandoned, as fashion dictates in the different lace 
 centres, such as Normandy, Surillac, Auvergne, Lorraine and la Touraine. 
 To these productions, modified by the prevailing fashion, the manufacturers 
 give fancy names so as to attract the attention of the general public w hich is 
 known to prefer novelty to a strictly beautiful although old fashioned object. 
 For example, (Jinny, which is so often quoted, has never existed as a distinctive 
 lace; it has never been manufactured within the memory of man inside the 
 walls which bear that name, for (Jinny is an old (Jastle in the heart of Paris, 
 turned into a Museum of Industrial Art; and some clever manufacturer, inspired 
 by specimens of the rare old Genoese Point existing in the Museum's rich col- 
 lection, having invented a fresh and effective combination in Guipure, gave this 
 name to his production, so as to attract the shopping public by means of that 
 charm which clings to the name Cluny, knowing that the word would conjure 
 up the historical walls of the quaint castellated Museum, and the memories of 
 mediaeval Paris. 
 
24 
 
 Passements, All narrow edgings were called by this name which, ori- 
 ginating in Italy, passed into France where it was used until the 17 th Cen- 
 tury as a general designation for what we call lace and gimp, though after that 
 period it became confined to trimmings. The most celebrated of the ancient 
 Passements were of gold and silver and clinquant, (plated copper), and were 
 made in France and Italy. The great centres however, from which metal la- 
 ces were sent all over Furope were Genoa, Milan and Florence. Some, of 
 these were most sumptuous in appearance, and, considering the costliness of 
 the raw material, of surprising widths. Coloured silk was frequently mixed 
 with the other threads to diminish the cost without destroying the general 
 effect. 
 
 La Bisctte — was a coarse, narrow, heavy, unbleached lace, without 
 any distinguishing characteristics, used by the middle classes in France and 
 Belgium during the 17 th Century. 
 
 La Glieuse (Beggar lace) was a great favourite in 1700; it was also 
 unbleached, was sheer and narrow, with a coarse net ground and graceful 
 pattern. 
 
 La Campane was a very fine narrow, white or unbleached pillow 
 lace, used for the edging of caps or broad strips of lace. The derivation of its 
 name is to be found in the Italian word Campane (bells) because it formed a 
 bell shaped edge to all it trimmed. 
 
 La Mignonette — is from " Mignon „ meaning small and graceful. 
 It was sometimes also called " Thread Blonde „, it was a fine thread edging 
 with light transparent meshes. 
 
 Blonde was originally a narrow lace which took its name from the 
 pale yellow or blond tint of the unbleached silk of which it was made. The 
 simplicity of this lace soon disappeared owing to the introduction of rich de- 
 signs in bleached and dyed silks, frequently varied by gold and silver threads. 
 — Modern blonde is more largely manufactured in France and Genoa than in 
 Spain where it originated. It is a wide, round meshed, sheer silk lace, with de- 
 signs composed of large, flat surfaces made in a close stitch, surrounded by a 
 coarse silk thread. In the more ordinary qualities, the design is embroidered by 
 hand upon machine-made tulle and linen filled in by darning ; it is also very ea- 
 sily imitated entirely by machinery. At one time Blonde was extensively made 
 made in Venice, but this branch of industry has died out there since the re- 
 vival in the production of thread lace and guipures at Palestrina. Genoa and 
 Cantu are the actual centres of its manufacture in Italy, and our exhibit con- 
 tains some beautiful modern specimens from the provinces of Liguria and Lom- 
 bardy. 
 
25 
 
 Point d'Esprit, Brittany Lace, or Embroidered or Tarn- 
 bonrtnlle Lace, was made in large quantities in Devonshire (England) in 
 Brittany, and around Genoa where its production continues. The bands of em- 
 broidered tulle which still trim the caps of the good wives in the little town of 
 Tulle, in France, are made entirely by bobbins and have given their name to the 
 round mesh ground of every variety of lace. Many very clever lace makers for- 
 merly spent their lives in doing nothing else but produce these patternless bands 
 ready for other hands to embroider, but after the introduction of an inferior price 
 of machine-made tulle, it no longer furnished a means of livelihood and the poor 
 workers were forced to seek fresh occupations. On the band of tulle, known 
 to commerce as " footing „ there are embroidered, (in fine darning stitch), 
 charming flowers with open-work heart, or small detached, conventionalized 
 designs; the ground is also frequently strewn with little embroidered dots, to 
 which the lace owes the name of " Point d' Esprit „ or "Spirit Point ,,. A 
 coarse thread is drawn round the embroidery forming an outline to the flow- 
 er stems and leaves. The edges of the antique laces are left without ornamen- 
 tation. The common, machine made, embroidered cotton-tulle that drugs the 
 market is copied from it and is very pretty for window curtains and furniture, 
 although its use on clothes is decidedly unartistic. 
 
 PlllltO di MilanO - PuntO di Napoli. — Milanese Point and 
 Neapolitan Point, are different names for a lace with round mesh ground, so 
 named from the Italian cities of Milan and Naples which were the two great cen- 
 tres of its fabrication. This lace has always been a favourite, as it washes well 
 and is exceedingly strong, and its manufacture has spread to all the countries of 
 Europe. It resembles Genoese pillow lace in having the same scrolls and flowers 
 formed by a ribbon in close stitch, with a mesh or tulle ground, whereas the 
 Genoese Lace is held together by bars. The Neapolitan point has a much rounder 
 • mesh than the Milanese, and the character of the design also plainly indicates 
 in what part of Italy the lace was made; this same rule applies to all Europe, for 
 although in the coarser qualities the technicalities constituting a lace named 
 after a special town were adopted as a standard for the same kind of lace pro- 
 duced in other places, transplanting even to the nearest village gradually altered 
 the quality of the lace in the finer varieties. 
 
 Torchon-Lace — Torchon is the French generic term by which the 
 following, ordinary Pillow-laces used on personal and household linen are 
 commercial)' known : " Wirtlischa ft s-Spi t /.«> .. or household lace — is 
 the name applied to it in Germany. 
 
 Mcrletto di Cautu, di Palestrina, degli Abruzzi, oic. is 
 
 the name by which it is called in Italy, after the great centres of its production. 
 It is an ordinary pillow-lace with a net ground, and is universally used on un- 
 derwear and on household and church linen; it is worked straight along like 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 weaving without the assistance of a crochet needle, as in Milanese point and 
 Guipures — so that it is in reality the simplest and purest of bobbin laces. Its 
 special qualifications for general use are great strength, endless variety of 
 patterns in geometrical combinations, and low price. 
 
 Machine-made imitation of Torchon costs two thirds the price of real 
 Torchon and is very easily torn, whilst the real Torchon outlasts the garments 
 on which it is placed and is therefore the cheapest pretty edging that is manu- 
 factured. Owing to the facility of communication and the exigences of fashion 
 the same designs that are made all over Italy are adopted in France, Belgium, 
 Bohemia, Portugal, Ireland, England, India. Colombo, Saxony, Germany and 
 many other countries. — A few of the most distinctive varieties which may 
 interest the reader are here named, those which coincide in design being placed 
 together. 
 
 Varieties. 
 
 Dalecarlie, is a Swedish bobbin lace resembling that of " Offida „ , 
 a variety of Italian lace made in the Province of the Marche, as well as 
 the common, " Abruzzi-lace „. These laces are all worked without any 
 drawing, the rude design being made by skipping the pin holes on a geo- 
 metrically perforated card. The pattern thus produced is surrounded by a 
 heavy thread, and composed of a close stitch worked between the meshes of 
 the coarse net-ground. 
 
 Sometimes the heavy thread is left out this work in the last remain- 
 ing tradition of a most exquisitely fine pillow lace which was made a cen- 
 tury ago in these provinces ; latterly in Sweden the manufacture of lace has 
 been protected, and the workwomen have been directed with loving care and 
 the happiest results, whereas the workers in the Marche and Abruzzi are en- 
 tirely neglected, although with a small capital in ready money, and a little 
 patience this industry could be revived with great profit to the capitalist and 
 enormous benefit to the surrounding country which is excessively miserable 
 and poor — the women are ready and willing to work, but requiring in- 
 struction and direction. 
 
 Mediaeval household lace, was made in most of the Spanish, 
 Dutch, Danish, German and Italian Provinces. It always ended in a straight 
 edge finished off with purls, and the design was often so thick with inter- 
 laced patches of close work that the net -ground was almost or wholly 
 suppressed, so that it appears like drawn work executed in a fancy pattern 
 upon house linen. The open work is left by twirling two or four threads 
 several times together, and by the holes in which the pins following the 
 contours of the drawing have been prinked. 
 
27 
 
 Reticella a fuselli. Is a mcdiccval pillow lace which is an exact 
 copy of the celebrated punto greco, pimlo taglialo and reticella. In certain 
 museums I have seen the finer examples placed and classified with the needle 
 laces which bear the above names, no one having observed under the mi- 
 croscope the difference in its execution. It was used extensively in house- 
 hold linen with most happy effect to replace those more expensive and te- 
 dious points. 
 
 Madeira lace, has a close stitch without a regular set ground, 
 being instead formed of varied webs and open spaces, and has oriental wheel 
 like designs which are very artistic and pleasing. 
 
 Ccyloil-laces, as also those from the Mediterranean Islands have a 
 mediaeval and charming effect, sometimes resembling the above, at others seem- 
 ing counterparts of certain Maltese-Laces. 
 
 Sicilian torchon, has no design drawn upon the parchment. The 
 peasant lace-maker follows the dictates of her fancy, forming capricious com- 
 binations of webs and nets by introducing the pin, or skipping the holes 
 which are pricked at regular intervals all over the strip of parchment which is 
 firmily sewed upon the cushion or " ballon „. Sicily was formerly celebrated, 
 for its gold and metal laces, but its production has nearly died out, and some 
 philanthropic souls are now trying to organize and procure a revival of this 
 industry so as to give a means of support to the women of Palermo and 
 other populous centres. — At Messina many varieties of lace are produced 
 with great exactness. 
 
 At present every variety of fancy-work receives its own distinctive 
 appellation, and all the old stitches that enter into its composition are decked 
 out with new and attractive names, and in the past, in the same way, the 
 laces made in every town, hamlet, castle or cottage, by young and old, rich 
 and poor, alike received special designations applied to the designs and, 
 stitches at the dictation of the head workwoman's imagination, and which 
 were afterwards adopted by her companions. 
 
 Brief as is this introduction, it has described one hundred and twenty 
 two of the principal kinds of lace, and although the reader's patience and 
 memory have already been severely taxed, yet not a quarter of the appella- 
 tions by which these laces and their varieties are known in different coun- 
 tries have been mentioned. Multiplying one hundred and twenty two by four 
 and the product by twenty, the average of nine thousand seven hundred and 
 sixty is produced, a" sum representing the names of individual stitches which, 
 for brevity and to avoid tedium have been omitted. 
 
 Many laces, however have forty or fifty different terms applied to 
 their component parts, each given because of the introduction of some dif- 
 ferent stitch or combination, and the stitches composing even the narrowest 
 
2ft 
 
 torchons are six or seven in number, so that the general average given above 
 is very low ; — were I to add the terms applied in different places to the ma- 
 terials and implements employed in the manufacture of lace, the description 
 would become very long and wearisome, and the enumeration of the terms 
 would form a good sized vocabulary. I have therefore drawn attention to 
 these figures simply that they may serve as a refutation to a general and 
 erroneous impression, common to many highly cultured people, that Lace- 
 making is only worthy to be classed among the secondary industries, in- 
 stead of standing high among the textile and decorative arts which adorn 
 our homes. 
 
 If this preparatory study has appeared long, it has assumed its pre- 
 sent form in order tbat the "History of Lace,,, which follows, and which 
 also serves as a Catalogue to our Exhibit at the Columbian Exposition, may 
 not be full of wearying technicalities and voluminous notes. 
 
 I trust that the following chapters will justify the course adopted. If 
 not, the fault lies in the inexperience of the narrator, and not in the lack 
 of interest and variety to the found in tracing through the Ages the develo- 
 pement of this graceful, refined and ornamental branch of Industrial Art. 
 
PHip II. 
 
 ®hc $irtlj of tljc fertile ^rte nno tlje (Origin of face. 
 
 Man loves ornament; had he existed when the earth was without form 
 and void, it might have been different, for first impressions are indelible ; 
 but, when his mind opened to look about him and observe, ornament at- 
 tracted his attention on every side, Cradled in the lap of a young world, 
 he saw fair nature robed in a many hucd garment, covered with reliefs of 
 shrubs and trees, chequered by cunning traceries of branches and leaves and 
 their shadow dancing in the sunshine. — Her mantle was trimmed with 
 open-work borders of meadow-land, fretted with great patches of parti- 
 colored flowers, while dainty fringes of interlaced ferns and grasses nodded 
 on the edges of the silvery water courses. When winter came Nature pre- 
 pared to sleep, and then changed these robes for a beauteous white sheet of 
 dazzling snow, diversified with wondrous interlaced patterns, worked by the 
 magic touch of frost in ice and rime. Then for the first time man saw, mir- 
 rored in God's handy work, the exquisite designs which in future ages his 
 descendants were destined to copy in producing lace. 
 
 The mind of primitive humanity was however as undeveloped as that 
 of a young child, and could neither analyze the impressions received nor 
 even realize their existence; and yet in making for itself rude coverings of 
 skins and plaited grasses, or utensils of bone, it sought to copy surrounding 
 objects, groping darkly for that with which to adorn the person and property. 
 
 When we look back into the misty vistas through which prehistoric 
 man wandered, we find his traces on the rocky paths of the Stone Age, 
 marked with curious carvings of zigzags, curves and animal designs. 
 
 Nature, well pleased at the Compliment paid her in these early efforts, 
 covered them over with earth, hiding them away until the time should 
 come when mankind would be so developed as to appreciate the value of 
 these records of his past ; just as a fond mother, after long years, draws from 
 some private recess a carefully treasured object, rudely executed, and shows 
 it to her grown-up son, to prove to him how clever he already was at the 
 time he thinks he must have been only a stupid, useless burden to her. 
 
 At the earliest moment of his existence, man must have felt the ne- 
 cessity for some means by which to snare birds and beasts and fish for food ; 
 and observing how they were sometimes caught in the tangled weeds and 
 
30 
 
 thickets, he invented the twisting of grasses and fibres into ropes, which 
 when knotted rudely together formed primitive nets. 
 
 Naturally the first ornaments for the person and attire were the tro- 
 phies of prowess, such as pierced teeth, tusks etc. worn strung together as 
 necklaces, bracelets, etc.; and on the garments they consisted in fringes formed 
 by the long hair of furs. These all served as the models from which the first 
 trimmings on rude textiles were copied. 
 
 The Lake Dwellers. 
 
 In Europe, the earliest race of which we know anything definite is 
 that of the Lake dwellers, whose industries are most interestingly illu- 
 strated by the fragments of their utensils found in the great bogs and lakes of 
 Switzerland. They existed from the time of the Troglodytes through the Stone 
 and far into the Bronze Age, some say into the Age of Iron, although they 
 had become extinct before the invasion of their country by the Romans. 
 
 In Asia we find the earliest artistic, ornate textiles among the Assy- 
 rians and the Indians, and in Africa, among the Egyptians; but, as the founda- 
 tion of Art (as we understand the term) — and the unbroken chain of 
 evidence with regard to its history, is to be found in their monuments and 
 sepulchres, we will first examine the Stone-Age in Europe as illustrated by 
 the Lake Dwellers, and then, turning to Assyria and Egypt for instruc- 
 tion, we will only leave them when their arts have accomplished the civiliza- 
 tion of the Peninsulas of Europe and of the northern coast of the Mediterranean. 
 
 One can understand that in the dry atmosphere and sand of Egypt, 
 delicate objects like textiles would resist the wear and tear of Centuries, al- 
 though marvellous it must ever seem to touch objects produced by human 
 skill thousands of years ago, — but it is nothing short of a miracle, that be- 
 neath peat and mud and slush, frozen and thawed alternatively for ages 
 beyond the memory of man, such perishable things as cords and stuffs, made 
 of a curious flax developed from the wild variety which is a native of the 
 west coast of the Mediterranean, prepared and spun as it would be by a pea- 
 sant of today, should have remained to give us proofs — meagre though they 
 must perforce be — of this early race of Europeans. Besides the baskets 
 that were most artistically woven of bark, fibre or sedges, and the fishing 
 nets made of coarse linen or fibre twine knotted into as regular meshes 
 as if produced to day, especially interesting for our branch of study, are 
 the remmants of stuffs and the bone, horn, and bronze needles and cro- 
 chet hooks used for making nets and knotting fringes into the edge of the 
 textiles. 
 
 Samples of all these objects are exhibited on the Revolving screen, 
 which serves to illustrate through them the origin and history of lace — 
 whilst the voluminous objects are placed round the walls in the glass cases 
 nearest to the Screen. 
 
31 
 
 Rothenhaiiseii and Ugenhausen, 
 
 N.° i.a. and i.b. Screen. 
 
 N, 1 A and l B are illustrations of Textiles found at Rothenhausen by 
 Herr K, Forrer, and Herr H. Messikommer, and are taken by kind permission 
 of the Authors from an interesting pamphlet on the subject of Lake Dwellings 
 published by them and entitled: Prelustorische varia as dem Antiqua, special 
 — Gatschrift fur Vorgeschichte — Zurig 1889- 
 67 represents a twisted hank of flax 
 74 a skein of twine 
 63 a tassel made of twine 
 70 a piece of rope 
 
 68> 69, 73 and 75 basket work of woven sedges, straw and woody fibre 
 59, 60. 61, different qualities of net 
 62, 71 textiles with and without sedge 
 72, 73 embroidered textiles 
 
 94, 65. Textiles edged with fringes; though not reproduced here, these frin- 
 ges were frequently twisted together and knotted at the ends. 
 70 A. Textile with Passementerie fringe. 
 
 N. I C is a real piece of the coarse basket plating found in Rothenhausen. 
 N. 1 I) contains two bits of loomwoven textiles from Rothenhausen. 
 
 When Herr Messikomer's father found the first fringed stuff at Rothen- 
 hausen in 1857> he showed it to an expert who said* it was modem Parisian 
 Passementerie work, but soon other pieces were found in the same exca- 
 vations and in the midst of surroundings which furnished positive proofs of 
 their authenticity as work of the ancient Lake-Dwellers. 
 
 Simple but practical weaver's frames, thread and twine from the size 
 which serves now for sewing sails, up to the dimensions of large cords, have 
 been found in skeins or already worked into stuffs, nets, tassels or fringes. 
 Also a peculiar, very strong material, plaited instead of woven out of strong 
 twine, has been found, and which might have served as akind of sail cloth. 
 
 At Ugenhausen, in L882, the embroideries illustrated on the screen 
 were found, the designs of which may have served as models for the perfected 
 ornaments of the Bronze Age. The rarity of these objects is explained by 
 their being found only among I he remains of dwellings destroyed by fire in 
 windless weather, combined with circumstances which would cause inflamma- 
 ble stuffs to drop into the water uncharred, when the floors beneath them 
 were reduced to the fine, close packed ashes suited to preserve textiles 
 from destruction by insects or by the waves. To form a better idea of the 
 men and women among the Lake Dwellers we must look for the race 
 which at present best illustrates the savage life of the past, and, allowing 
 for the influences of climate and of contact with the Arabs and the Luropeans, 
 it appears that Central Africa can furnish the information we desire. 
 
32 
 
 Card II, A, B, C, D. Screen. 
 Card II shows four sketches of savage dwellings. 
 
 II A. represent a Lake-Dwellers settlement — reconstructed according 
 to the opinion of one of the most eminent professors of archaeology. 
 
 II B. represents a grainery of the Babusesse tribe as illustrated in 
 Henry Stanley's latest work on Africa. 
 
 IIC. represents part of a Bougos Village in Africa. 
 
 II D. represents Aboriginal Lake-Dwellings in New Guinea. 
 
 The Africans use boats hollowed out of trees as did the Lake-Dwellers, 
 their pottery has the same ornamentation and is baked in the sun as was 
 that of the Lake-dwellers: they live in settlements instead of following a 
 nomadic life and have many other customs in common, therefore in study- 
 ing their] rude arts and divisions of labour, we may hope to ascertain much 
 about the daily life of the Lake Dwellers at the time of their greatest de- 
 velopement. 
 
 All through the interior of Africa and in the basins of the Upper and 
 the Lawer Ogowe and the Congo the woman does all the hand-work, while 
 the man reserves to himself what may be called the arhusing occupations. 
 He goes to the two big fishing reunions that are held every year at the time 
 when the water in the great rivers is at its lowest ; he snares birds and ani- 
 mals for food and clothing, he goes out to the hunts and battles, to war and 
 to plunder and thoroughly enjoys the excitement of this life, whilst the wo- 
 man remains at home and busies herself in a modest daily round that is 
 startling in its fatiguing variety. Besides the care of the domestic animals, 
 she does all the field and farm work, cultivates the cereals, cuts the wood, 
 and fishes along the smaller streams. She gathers up and carries on her 
 back all the produce of her labour, and the fruits from the plantations that 
 are often at great distances from the village; arrived at her home, she helps 
 to tidy up the village and then, instead of resting, she grinds the flour, 
 cooks the meals, and still finds time to weave artistic palm mats and 
 sheetings, and to model and to bake the simple pottery that is needed for 
 domestic use. 
 
 The smiths and the weavers of fine " Rafia „ cloths are men especially 
 apprenticed to the trade, and remain always faithful to their tools. 
 
 The industries in which savage man indulges, when at home, for he 
 never works, are the making of fishing and hunting nets, the sewing together 
 with great neatness of the squares of rafia produced by the professional 
 weavers, the making of " Puka „, (or bags) in fine needle work, ornamental 
 carving and the shaping and polishing of the wooden parts of weapons; when 
 necessary he also attends to the construction of " pirogues „ and huts, the 
 only two of all these occupations that are really hard work. 
 
33 
 
 Card III. i. and 2. Screen. 
 
 Card HI contains two pen and ink sketches that were made on the 
 back of an English Cotton goods label by my late brother-in-law, Giacomo 
 di Brazza, who spent several years in Africa — together with Cavaliere Pecile 
 — on an exploring expedition which was commanded by his brother, the ce- 
 lebrated African Explorer Pierre (le Brazza, actually Governor of the 
 French Congo. 
 
 III. 1. Is a sketch of a wig or hat worn by a Batcke chief; it is com- 
 posed of fringes and cords in pine apple fibre, dyed black, and knotted like 
 the above mentioned " Parisian Passement „ of the lake dwellers, 
 
 Card III. 2. 
 
 III. 2. represents a fringed square of woven Rafia (of the natural color 
 ot raw silk) such as is worn by the Batcke as a kind of cap or head hand- 
 kerchief. 
 
 N.° IV. Cases. 
 
 Number IV is a piece of Rafia with knotted fringe, w hich has been 
 placed in the glass-cases with the following voluminous pieces of African-lace 
 kindly lent by Cavaliere Pecile. 
 
 N.° V. and VI. Cases. 
 
 Number V is a " Puka „ (bag or pocket) made with the needle, in a 
 curious, complicated lace stitch. These pockets are everywhere used in the 
 Upper and lower Ogowe and in many parts of the Congo-Country ; the 
 band is slipped over the Arm and shoulder-blade, with the bag hanging un- 
 derneath the arm-pit; and they serve as pockets as well as travelling bags 
 in that land where clothing is too scant to furnish a fold in which to place 
 one; they are more or less ornate according to the fancy of the artificer, and 
 no self-respecting Ogowean would be without one unless he could neither 
 make, borrow or steal it. 
 
 Our particular " Puka „ is the work of a member of the Abomba tribe, 
 which is also distinguished for its tonsorial artists. These black Truefits pro- 
 duce marvellous effects on the pates of their fellow tribesmen, whose woolly 
 hair they plait and clip and shave into most complicated and ornate headdresses, 
 adorned with gew-gaws, and bisected with little shaved lines and spots which 
 meander among the knobs of wool and cause these heads to resemble relief 
 maps of their dark native continent: 
 
 But to return to this Puka, which is very commodious, elastic and de- 
 cidedly stylish, with is adornment of elephant bristles, and the large iron bell 
 
34 
 
 that has charmed the tedium of many a long journey with its clatter. These 
 pockets are made of fine twine manufactured from the leaves of the pine- 
 apple plant. The workman cuts the leaves into strips about half an inch in 
 width and passes these between his index finger and a sharp knife -blade, 
 thus most daintily removing all the leaf part that covers the fibres, then he 
 rolls the latter into a fine double twine, a couple of yards in length, by 
 rubbing it carefully with the palm of his hand on his leg above the knee 
 until it becomes perfectly smooth and even; this twine he threads into a 
 needle and, beginning the bag at the small end, he works spirally, widen- 
 ing when necessary, first with a double button-hole stitch and afterwards 
 with one much more complicated until the whole is completed with one 
 continuous thread ; to avoid knots, every time the worker's allowance of twine 
 is nearly exhansted, he unthreads the needle and splices the end of the twine 
 with fresh fibre, rolling it into a fine twine as before upon the flat of his 
 knee; and continues repeating the same operation every time fresh thread is 
 required until the bag is finished. 
 
 One may imagine that these articles are not completed in a day, Cav. 
 Pecile told me that on an exploring expedition he observed a denizen of a 
 certain village on the Upper Ogowe working industriously on one of these 
 bags; — returning to the same place six months later he found the same 
 villager sitting at the same spot, and working on the same bag, which was 
 still far from being completed. An African in his native wilds is never over- 
 industrious; therefore the friends and advocates of limited labour and fresh 
 air for the working classes need have no fear that this man did not enjoy 
 sufficient exercise and recreation during the time which elapsed between Cav. 
 Pecile's two visits. 
 
 VI. Cases. 
 
 Number VI is a gem in more ways than one, for it is not only con- 
 sidered locally very valuable, and is worn by chiefs on the shores of the 
 Loanga as a badge of office, — but it is real lace made with a needle, and 
 its stitches are the counter-part of those in the beautiful Punto in aria of 
 Venice. It is a cap shaped like a Phrygian or a Neapolitan fisherman's cap. 
 
 Especial attention should be given to its shape, as much will be said 
 in the following pages about this particular kind of head gear which is grad- 
 ually becoming obsolete. The fabrication of this African cap begins at the 
 centre of the crown with a tiny but perfect wheel which is increased by al- 
 ternate open and close stitches of exceeding fineness, made with perfect re- 
 gularity of spacing and depth ; at intervals diamonds are formed of close 
 work alternating with a ground of open stitch, and the completed cap is 
 finished off with a band at the edge produced in quite a different kind of stitch. 
 The thread used is fine, strong and pliable, resembling unbleached flax or 
 hemp, but is seen to be not of the same construction as these when exa- 
 
35 
 
 mined under the microscope. Might not this be the fibre used by the Lake 
 Dwellers which scientists have failed to classify, and which has successfully 
 resisted the wear of centuries? 
 
 Leaving the Savage races in order to search among those of known 
 civilization we may go back for centuries without finding the origin of textiles. 
 The ancient monuments of Babylonia and Assyria furnish the names of kings 
 who reigned three thousand five hundred years before Christ, living to the 
 great age of the early patriarchs, and some of these princes must have 
 existed near the time af the flood, as frequent allusions are made in these 
 inscriptions to that awful calamity. 
 
 In studying the history of the world as depicted on the monuments of 
 Egypt, the Exodus of the Jews appears a trivial bit of Modern history; and 
 Abraham's visit to that country, during which his pretty young wife, Sarah, 
 attracted great attention at Court by her beauty, grace of manner and accom- 
 plishments, seems a romantic episode in the life of an ancestor. The Egyptian 
 hieroglyphics which represent long lines and dynasties of kings, majestically 
 arrayed, go back so very far that we lose our awe for the age of the Book 
 Manin, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata which describe the civilization of 
 India; the Illiad and the Penteteuch seem works of nation history and we 
 look upon the Book of Job, written two thousand five hundred years before 
 Christ as a comparatively modern classic. Whether the Egyptian and Assy- 
 rian races were twin sisters, or which was the first created we cannot tell, but 
 both bear marks of the same Semitic parentage in lineaments and charac- 
 ter. In any case the stock was prolific, and a branch of it pushed into India 
 in the vanguard of the Arian race, which, when the ground had been well 
 cultivated by its industrious forerunners, in its turn emigrated, and comming- 
 ling is richer, more fiery blood with that of its predecessors gave a fresh in- 
 centive to all the arts of peace and war. 
 
 These old nations were full of intuitive knowledge which it has been 
 the fate of our modern civilization to rediscover and classify, for they even 
 realized the existence of microbes although ignorant of the means for de- 
 stroying them, and so the pantheistic religion of the Romans included special 
 exorcisms, and prayers addressed to their personification as a god. 
 
 We will take Job as an example of these ancients, for, in his exqui- 
 site poem, we receive the story of his life and experiences from his own 
 lips, while Homer but repeats and idealizes what he had heard from others. 
 — Job was a rich Aryan chief or king; he possessed a palatial residence 
 constructed of baked bricks, having a portico adorned with column^. This 
 dwelling was furnished with couches and beds, and with tables on which his 
 meals were served on gold plate. At night the apartments were illuminated by 
 means of lamps and candles. Utensils of copper, iron, and earthenware, as also 
 bottles made of skins, and sack-cloth bags served for the hawser domestic uses. 
 
 Job lived in or near a city, for he speaks of the princes covering their 
 mouths in token of respect when he passed them in the gate, and of the 
 
36 
 
 nobles and old men rising to do him homage and waiting to be spoken to, 
 with the same courtesy that is now shown towards rulers. He wore a dia- 
 dem or crown of gold, gold ear-rings and a flowing robe edged about the 
 neck with a collar; this was girded with a leather or embroidered belt and 
 over it he wore a rich mantle hanging from his shoulders; he had also a mir- 
 ror in which to admire his toilet when completed. 
 
 The garments he describes were carefully fashioned and sewn, and the 
 cloth which composed them was dyed of various hues and woven of thread 
 spun from flax, wool, camel's hair, and perhaps even silk ; but this is not cer- 
 tain, for, although a legend ascribes to him a knowledge of the use of silk, 
 it cannot he proved. 
 
 In summer, the woollen stuffs were packed away in chests with strong- 
 smelling woods and spices to save them from destructive insects, as so well 
 described by Homer centuries later. 
 
 The Treasury contained fine gold of Ophir, gold dust, jewel's of fine 
 gold, gold coins, alloyed silver, sapphires, rubies, crystals — by which term per- 
 haps diamonds are meant — pearls, onyxes, coral and Ethiopian topazes. The 
 city in or near which he lived had gates and walls, and was surrounded by 
 a moat. His fields were laid out with land-marks, fences, hedges and ditches ; 
 he rented additional fields from his neighbours, and employed a thousand 
 yoke of oxen to till his land. He had one wife, who lived with him, while 
 his three danghters and seven sons had each a separate home ; his own 
 household consisted of hired servants and slaves, since prisoners taken in war 
 were also in his time compelled to do the hardest work, including the building 
 of great monuments which princes caused to be erected during their lifetime 
 to serve as mausoleums, and which were adorned with laudatory inscriptions 
 carved in stone or traced on terra-cotta tablets. Books were written with 
 iron pens and may have been composed of tablets, or of rolls of palm or 
 papyrus, and possibly of leather, since there were boots, bridles, slings and 
 water-bottles all made of tanned, skins. Job speaks of swift ships, of the 
 phenomena of the sea, the forces of nature, the condensation of rain and the 
 purifying effect of frost : he is also well acquainted with astronomy and na- 
 tural history, for he speaks of the North Star and of the Pleiades, and mi- 
 nutely describes the whale, the camel, the ox, the ass and the horse, as also 
 sheep, goats, fowls, ostriches and innumerable wild birds and animals. He oc- 
 cupied himself with commercial as well as agricultural pursuits, and had scales 
 for weighing merchandise. He sent out couriers and tax-gatherers and was 
 so frequently visited by travellers and merchants from different countries that 
 be kept interpreters in order to be able to converse wih them ; he also was 
 himself a traveller, and when on| a journey or on a hunting expedition made 
 use of tents. 
 
 In his time there M ere judges and physicians, and horse and foot soldiers 
 organized in troops and armies, furnished with iron and steel shields and 
 breastplates, and armed with swords, pikes, lances and bows: flint heads for 
 
37 
 
 the arrows, and sharp stones lor the slings — remnants of the usages of the 
 Stone Age — were still used. In hunting and fishing he possessed — ■ in 
 addition to the above named weapons — traps, snares, nets made of cord, 
 hooks and harpoons. He and his children were very hospitable, and gave 
 frequent feasts which sometimes lasted late into the night, and to which 
 they invited not only their neighbours hut also guests living at great distan- 
 ces ; the food was cooked and seasoned with salt, olive-oil, butter and milk; 
 it consisted of meat, fowl, eggs and vegetables, and cakes made of corn, wheat 
 or barley ground betwen two stones into flour by the women: nuts, fruit, 
 honey, and cheese came in as delicacies. The usual beverage at these ban- 
 quets was wine made from grapes. 
 
 Job's religion was monotheistic; and though the sun and moon were 
 worshipped in his neighbourhood, idols of wood or stone had not yet be- 
 come a part of the religion known to him — All these details have been 
 mentioned to prove how little certain oriental races have altered in their cus- 
 toms since the oldest historic epoch, although in the last fifty years the pe- 
 netration of European customs into the East has produced innovations. 
 
 No poet, singing the heroic deeds of his nation, would interrupt the flow 
 of stately verse to introduce trivialities which would mar the completeness 
 of his ode, or retard its climax, but sometimes when describing fair women 
 and their attractions, the ancient authors linger lovingly over their charms 
 and even add a description of the personal adornments which enhanced their 
 loveliness, and these brief word-pictures coincide with the cartoons on Egy- 
 tian and Asssyrian monuments, and Etruscan vases and tombs ; whilst in the 
 secluded homes of Indian princes this type of woman-hood is still preserved. 
 Graceful female forms are there still veiled with gauzy materials and robed 
 in richly spangled tissues, or draped in cunningly wrought mantles embroi- 
 dered along the hems with divers colors, and trimmed with rich and compli- 
 cated fringes; about their pretty feet, bangles and bells tinkle as they move 
 about busied in their household duties, or raise the curtains that veil the 
 door ways of their apartment to catch a glimpse of the great world out- 
 side These curtains are made of rich carpets or heavy materials adorned 
 with cunning designs wrought in needle-work by themselves or by the maid- 
 ens under their skilled direction. 
 
 But if we wish to touch and examine the textiles mentioned by Homer 
 and his contemporaries, we must turn to the tombs in Egypt. The Egyptians 
 believed in the bodily resurrection of the dead, and therefore caused the 
 bodies of the departed to be carefully embalmed with spices and bitumen. 
 This, combined with the dry atmosphere and many wrappings and mummy 
 cases, has preserved the rich garments in which the remains were clothed 
 so that their beloved might not blush for his mean attire on appearing be- 
 fore Osiris and the shades in the other world. Besides this, the Egyptians 
 adorned the walls of the tomb with drawings, absolutely truthful in every 
 detail — illustrative of the occupations and past life of the deceased, how ever 
 
38 
 
 simple and uneventful it may have been — and of the nnmber and em- 
 ployments of his servants. 
 
 The following illustrations of some of these cartouches which, together 
 with the information regarding them, we owe to the kindly interest taken in 
 our work by Prof. Schiaparelli of the Egyptian Museum in Florence, while 
 the collection of textiles, without which this exhibition would be incomplete, 
 is due to the well-known antiquarian author and critic, Herr. R. Forrer, of 
 Strasbourg. I therefore gladly avail myself of this opportunity for heartily 
 thanking them both in the name of the committee and in my own for the 
 valuable information they have contributed to this book, and for the bene- 
 volence and patience with which they replied to our frequent importunings. 
 
 XIV. A. Screen. 
 
 Nets were made in Egypt in great abundance and from the remotest 
 times; the process of their manufactnre is pictured — N. XIV. A. — on the 
 tomb of the feudal prince Nekira, near Beni-Hassan in Upper Egypt, and 
 which was decorated under the Twelfth Dynasty about 2500 B. C. ; the 
 same design is, with slight variations which prove it to be original, repeated 
 one thousand years later in a tomb of the XVII Dynasty near Thebes. 
 
 XIV. B. Screen, XIV. C. 
 
 Shews two ways of snaring birds with nets, and is from the same 
 tomb, as also is XIV. c which indicates that the Egyptians, like many savage 
 nations, and like the American and Asiatic Indians, used nets for carrying 
 heavy weights. This cartoon represents a water-carrier with two jars borne 
 in nets. 
 
 It will be observed that, instead of using a biforcated needle in the ma- 
 nufacture of these nets, two workmen employ balls of twine, and that 
 the net is stretched on a flat frame and worked at both ends at once. 
 These large nets were made of flax or cotton twine, and were used alike 
 for bird-catching and for fishing, as well as for curtains in the doorways and 
 windows of houses to exclude flies and other insects. 
 
 XV. Screen. 
 
 Is a much older illustration of the use of nets than the preceding car- 
 touche, and is taken from a bas relief in the tomb af the dignitary Iebehmi 
 near the great pyramid, constructed under the rule of the fifth Dynasty 3300 
 Years before Christ. — It represents a man carrying a pole on which are 
 hung several bird cages — just as on any autumn morning one may see 
 an Italian bird snarer carrying his decoys to the trimmed thickets where his 
 nets are spread. — There are many monuments, older than the above, which 
 also illustrate the use of nets in Egypt. 
 
 V 
 
XVI. Screen. 
 
 39 
 
 Is a drawing which represents a fine net in the Egyptian Museum at 
 Florence. It is of twine rubbed with bitumen and is also evidently made for 
 catching brds or small fish, as it is composed entirely of little, close-set 
 bags of net in which the game — once entered — must remain suspended 
 without power to move, thus resembling in its effect the fine net left loose 
 between two coarser ones at present used for bird-catching in Italy. In the 
 Florentine Museum there is another net made entirely of leather, in which* 
 material slits are regularly cut close together on the same principle and with 
 like effect as our Christmas Tree nets for sweets, clipped out of silver pa- 
 per. — These leather, net-like curtains must have served in the doorways and 
 windows of the wealthy, or perhaps to save animals from being tormented 
 by flies and gnats, in the same way as nets are now thrown over horses in 
 summer, in warm climates, with the same object in riew. 
 
 XVII. Screen, 
 
 N. XVII represents a little, double knotted bag which was made to 
 hold a porhyry balsam bottle. 
 
 It is more artistically worked in Macrame stitch, and resembles, in its 
 effect, the meshes of the celebrated resea>i double, or double ground of old 
 Burano lace. We find the reproduction of nets in endless variety on Greek 
 and Etruscan vases, but, notwithstanding their universal use for domestic 
 purposes, we have no proof that they were adopted as embroidery for cloth- 
 ing, although many of the elaborately knotted fringes of the Assyrians and 
 Jews produce the effect of nets. 
 
 Fillets were in general use among the Greeks and Etruscans for bind- 
 ing up the hair, and were worn with diadems and with and without veils; 
 they are often represented as ornamented with designs, but we cannot tell 
 whether these represent gold buttons, or embroidered or filagree work, for 
 in the decorations on the vases the treatment is somewhat conventional. 
 In VIII. A. are shewn Greek costumes photographed from the famous Sy- 
 siphoz vase in the Munich Museum. 
 
 XV1II.B. and B, Screen., XVI II. C. Screen. 
 
 The earliest Egyptian Mummy -cloths are, like those of the Peruvian 
 Mummies, almost prehistoric, and have the same weaving and texture as the 
 stuffs of the Lake-dwellers. We have no illustrations of these, but XVIII. A. 
 will serve our purpose though it is of a later period from Achmim Pano- 
 polis. — In it the warp threads are left as a fringe, and XVIII. B. shews 
 how, after working an inch or two of texture, the woof was omitted or 
 drawn out so as to form a transparent border. This was varied by spaces 
 
4<» 
 
 of open-work, as in XVIII. C, in which the weft is shot across behind 
 the warp at regular distances for a certain number of threads, and then 
 the ordinary weaving continues, thus forming alternate squares ; these woof- 
 threads are then cut away if desired; at a later period these open spaces were 
 filled in with coloured embroidery. 
 
 IX. Screen. 
 
 N.° IX. represents a skirt embroidered round the belt and furnished 
 with braces to support it from the shoulders. This design dates from an in- 
 scription belonging to the XII. Dynasty, 2500 B. C. and preserved, in the Flo- 
 rence Museum. 
 
 The early Egyptians also made fringes which were either knotted into 
 the material they were destined to adorn, or sewed on afterwards. We fre- 
 quently find examples of garments trimmed with them, especially sashes and 
 the edge of skirts. Deep fringes were also worn round the neck; when this 
 is the case the women are represented as engaged in menial service or ma- 
 nual labour, thus indicating the lower classes, who may have adopted the 
 fashion in imitation of the rich necklaces of their betters, or to satisfy their 
 love of colour and ornament at small cost. — These neck fringes remind us 
 of the artistically plaited grass necklaces made and worn by the wild tribe 
 of Matheran in Northern India, the work in which is identical with that which 
 served as a model for the beautiful Oriental gold necklaces found in Etrus- 
 can tombs, and which are still made from the same designs by workmen 
 in India who, despite the innovations of the British dominion and the XIX. 
 century, still cling with loving faithfulness to the traditions of their ancestors. 
 
 The bas-reliefs executed in honour of the princes belonging to the XIX. 
 and XX. Dynasties in the Royal Tombs in the Valley of the Kings, near 
 Thebes, furnish us with many illustrations of elaborate fringes, 
 
 X. Screen. 
 
 N.° X. represents Queen Tachat, mother of the Pharaoh-Amonmensis on 
 whose tomb she is portrayed, and who reigned in the XIII. century B. C. 
 
 XI Screen. 
 
 N.° XI. represents Queen Isit, wife of Rameses VI. as she is depicted 
 on her own tomb; she belonged to the XX. Dynasty, XII. century B. C. 
 
 XII, XIII. Screen. 
 
 N.° XII. represents Rameses VII. and N.° XIII. his wife, both copied 
 from his tomb of the XX. Dynasty, 1200 B. C. 
 
41 
 
 XXXVI. A., B., C. Screen. 
 
 A. P>. and C, N." XXXVI, are illustrations also taken from the Royal 
 Tombs at Thebes. A. represents an Arab chief of the Absha tribe which 
 migrated into Egypt during the XII. Dynasty, about 1600 B. C. B. represents 
 Arabs of the same tribe. 
 
 C represents the Phoenician prince Refa bringing gifts to a Pharaoh of 
 the XVIII. Dynasty, about 1900 B. C. — The garments of this prince are 
 beautifully worked and trimmed with fringes, cords and tassels. 
 
 A correct idea of the princely and priestly clothing used in Egypt at 
 the time Moses wrote his laws and the history of the ancestors of his Race 
 — about 1500 R. C. — may be obtained by reading the instructions given 
 in Exodus XXXVIII. and following chapters for the fashioning of the Jewish 
 priestly garments, which were copied, with modifications, from those of the 
 Royal Princes who, at that period in Egypt were considered as also belong- 
 ing to the hierarchy of religion, and so had a double hold on the supersti- 
 tious populace; and it was in this capacity that Moses acquired much of his 
 erudition, and of his knowledge of sanitary laws. 
 
 The costume of the Jewish High Priest, according to the prescriptions 
 laid down by Moses, consisted of an under robe, long and full in the skirt, 
 and with sleeves to the wrists; under this robe was to be worn a pair of 
 breeches, both garments being made of white linen. Over the robe was worn 
 the Ephod, or tunic of fine twined linen, an expression which modern cri- 
 ticism considers here incorrectly translated, as the same Hebrew term is else- 
 where used for silk) the ephod was therefore probably made of spun silk 
 dyed blue; it was scant in the skirt, and readied only to the knees, had 
 short sleeves, and was bound about the neck with a piece of the same ma- 
 terial that it might not be torn in putting it on and off; this binding was 
 adorned with a border embroidered in gold, purple and scarlet, in button- 
 hole stitch round the edges and round the openings through which the gold 
 chains supporting the breast-plate were to pass: an onyx stone engraved with 
 the names of the tribes of Israel was set in rich embroidery upon each 
 shoulder; the hem was adorned with a rich border, repeating the designs of 
 the shoulders and neck and edged with gold bells that tinkled as the wearer 
 moved, alternated with pomegranates made in needle-work of purple and 
 scarlet, forming a kind of passementerie resembling the needle lace on the 
 edge of Turkish veils. — The Ephod was belted in at the waist by a richly 
 embroidered girdle to which, by means of rings in its lower edge and of a 
 blue lace passing through them, the glorious, sacred breast plate, composed 
 of a mass of gems and sparkling embroidery, was attached. The High Priest 
 wore upon his head a mitre of fine linen, a kind of veil with fringed edges 
 held in place by a gold diadem about two fingers deep, and reaching from 
 ear to ear; this was sewed to another piece of blue lace which bound it 
 about the head and was tied in a bow with embroidered and fringed ends 
 
 6 
 
42 
 
 falling behind, over the mitre. Tradition explains this blue lace as fringed 
 and worked in silk of various colours; in that case it must have been a 
 kind of passementerie, or needle lace. 
 
 A large and ample cloak or coat, made of fine embroidered linen, was 
 thrown over the shoulders to complete this regal costume. From this description 
 it is to be inferred that two kinds of work, not embroidered in the stuff, were 
 executed on the garment, one being the pomegranates in coloured silks that 
 hung between the bells round the edge of the Ephod, and which would coin- 
 cide in design and treatment with Turkish needle-lace of the XV. century 
 of our era, and the " blue lace „ made of silk and thread that was knotted 
 together like a passementerie or macramc bobbin lace. Cotton was never 
 highly esteemed for textiles in the West during classic times ; it is first men- 
 tioned in the Book of Esther, though it must have been in use in the East 
 for centuries before. 
 
 The occupations of the Jewish women, the trust placed by the men 
 in their advice, the selection made from among them of rulers and judges, 
 their erudition and literary accomplishements, the direction of the house, the 
 management of the slaves and of home-industries, their simple amusements 
 and their intelligent devotion to the rearing of their children, all resemble 
 these characteristics as portrayed in the lives of the most chaste class of 
 Greek and Etruscan matrons who, by their education and retired mode of 
 life, became most intelligent, serious and philosophic, and were thus prepared 
 to become the first brave disciples of Christianity, so that the costume they 
 wore preserved one type for centuries, and, slightly modified by climate and 
 nationality, is that of the women of the early Church. On the other hand, 
 the style of garment suited to the more enervated life and looser morals of 
 India, Syria and Egypt was adopted by the gay-hearted dancing girls and 
 the less sedate women of the Roman Court. 
 
 A Matron's costume consisted of a flowing under tunic or slola with 
 long or short sleeves, composed of heavy or light material as fancy or the 
 season might dictate: over this stola a shorter tunic was worn made full at 
 the neck, or of one straight piece clasped on either shoulder and draped 
 across the chest. The waist was girt by a belt of metal, leather, or passe- 
 menterie, or else the draperies Avere held in restraint by a simple ribbon. 
 
 The feet were protected by shoes, slippers, or sandals, to which stock- 
 ings — biforcated at the toes to admit the sandal strap — were added in 
 winter. When walking abroad, and also at home in chilly weather, the ma- 
 tron wore a full toga edged with embroidery, or fringed or scalloped round 
 the borders. A long veil made of transparent material, more or less richly 
 fringed or embroidered according to her wealth and the position the occu- 
 pied in the social scale was artistically draped over her hair and made to 
 hang down upon her shoulders. — The draping of this veil and the comb- 
 bing of the hair beneath it was considered of great importance, and a dia- 
 dem with any quantity of pins, ribbons, fillets and jewels were used to adorn 
 
43 
 
 her locks, which were braided, waved, curled or frizzed quite in modern fa- 
 shion. Blind Homer in wandering from palace to palace, must have heard 
 this branch of the feminine toilet freely discussed, since he accurately de- 
 scribes it precisely as we see it represented on Greek vases adorned with 
 representations of Andromache's grief: 
 
 " Her hair's fair ornaments, the braids that bound, 
 
 „ The net that held them, and the wreaths that crown'd: 
 
 „ The veil and diadem threw far away „ etc. 
 
 Besides the gold wreaths that encircled her Greek knot, and the jewelled 
 hair-pins that held her veil in place, the rich patrician had numberless brooches, 
 rings and bracelets, clasps and ear-rings, as well as chatelaines composed of 
 innumerable tiny chains by which were suspended all the objects that could 
 possibly be of use to her in her toilet, either when from home or during 
 her household occupations. — The gleaming fillet or net that contained her 
 hair was often composed of precious metals cunningly and exquisitely wrought, 
 like the golden net of I Iepluvstus : 
 
 ".Whose texture e'en the search of gods deceives, 
 Fine as the filmy webs the spider weaves. „ 
 
 The young girls often allowed their hair to flow loose under their 
 veils, or they plaited it in long tresses, binding a simple ribbon or net round 
 the brows. — They wore shorter and less ample tunics than the married 
 women, and no jewelry, or only a brooch of the simplest pattern to clasp 
 or to pin together a garment when necessary. 
 
 The Jewish men, who were neither athletic nor equestrian, wore clothes 
 very like those of the women, supplemented by a coat with arm-holes in- 
 stead of the toga; this coat was generally dyed a dark colour and was freely 
 adorned with fringes. 
 
 The men of Ktruria, Greece, and Rome had flowing robes for certain 
 festivals or offices, just as they had suits of armour for war: but their daily 
 costume consisted in the short full tunic, with or without sleeves, belted in 
 at the waist and covered by a toga that either hung majesticallly from their 
 shoulders, or was Wrapped about them in folds so full of grace that they 
 are still called classic. 
 
 Sometimes, for riding and travelling, and in cold weather, the men 
 adopted short breeches that were hidden beneath the tunic, — a custom de- 
 riving, perhaps, from contact with the East — as also a sort of cloth stock- 
 ing or legging strapped with leather thongs proceeding from the sandal or 
 or leather shoe, a fashion that is still followed by the mountaineers about 
 Rome. They also had regular leather boots, gauntlets and wallets. They 
 wore helmets in time of war, and on parade, but when following peaceful 
 occupations they made use of caps and fillets. 
 
44 
 
 XIX., XIX. /, XIX. 2. Screen. 
 
 N.° XIX. illustrates certain of these garments: XIX. 1. represents a 
 tunic embroidered with adavem or stripes. XIX. 2, is a tunic embroidered with 
 squares — like those described in the Ephod — on either shoulder; both these 
 drawings also illustrate the embroideries on other parts of this garment. 
 
 XIX. J. Screen. 
 
 XIX. 3. represents a toga with fringed edge: the toga and pallium 
 are succeeded in these modern times by shawls, and by the blanket of the 
 Red Indian. 
 
 XIX. 4. Screen. 
 
 XIX. 4. is a drawing of a knitted woollen sock of mitten shape, thus 
 made to allow the sandal -straps to pass inside the great toe. 
 
 XIX. 5. Screen. 
 
 XIX. 5. represents a leather slipper. 
 
 XIX. 6. Screen. 
 
 XIX. 6. is a shoe of the hygienic heel pattern; such as we might 
 wear to-day. 
 
 XIX. 7. Screen. 
 
 XIX. 7. is a leather boot. The embroidered bands worn on the tunic 
 and the toga in the time of the early Roman Empire, as well as the bor- 
 ders and fringes worn by the Jews, denoted by their size, form and colour 
 the rank and occupation of the wearer, and were etablished by Imperial 
 decrees. Roman citizens alone were allowed to use the various shades of 
 purple ; the Senator's distinctive was a broad band or clavcm which, passing 
 over the shoulder of the tunic, descended before and behind, often reaching 
 below the waist. Equestrian rank was denoted by two narrow strips ; the 
 embroidered design on the shirts — the tradition of which still exists in those 
 worn by the Italian ciociari — were often round or oblong instead of square, 
 in which case the pieces in the four lower corners of the tunic were shaped 
 and designed to correspond with them; at other times the neck-opening was 
 widened and made to descend, like a deep collar, several inches over the 
 back and chest. A band of embroidery or a stripe, either woven in the ma- 
 terial or sewn on afterwards, ran round the bottom of the richer tunics 
 which were woven in one piece with an opening through which to pass 
 tlie head, and were sewn together on each side from the arm-pit to the hem. 
 The toga for a full-grown man was about a yard and a half wide by two 
 
45 
 
 yards and a quarter long; it was often fringed or embroidered, or was 
 woven with stripes at the ends or sides; rounds or squares of embroidery 
 to match those on the tunic with which it was worn were also introduced 
 at its corners. The women of the period wore, instead of the toga, an exag- 
 gerated veil gracefully draped over the entire figure; this veil was called a 
 pallium, and was made of thin delicate material embroidered or woven with 
 fringes or borders, or scattered over with regularly recurring designs of flow- 
 ers, leaves, or birds, and usually finished with a fringe at the ends. 
 
 The garments above described are illustrated in the Italian Lace Exhi- 
 bit by pieces of embroidery and textiles manufactured and worn by men and 
 women in the first centuries of the Christian Era in the manner above de- 
 scribed, rare examples, obtained from Herr. R. Eorrer's unique collection of 
 the textiles he found in graves in Achmin — a city on the right bank of the 
 Nile in Upper Egypt, now containing a population of only about 30.OOO, — 
 of which number IOOO are Coptic Christians — but in classic times it w.is 
 large, prosperous, and celebrated under the name of Panapolis, and enjoyed 
 special reputation during the Roman Empire as a manufacturing centre of 
 costly stuffs and finely woven linens. — The oldest graves lie about five feet 
 below the level of the ground, and often there are several superimposed, 
 which shews the great antiquity of this burial place ; in fact it must have 
 been used at least from the III. century of our Era till the time when Ma- 
 hometanism had become predominant throughout Egypt. — The graves con- 
 sist of holes, dug in the sand, in which the body was laid between boards, 
 and they contain every imaginable article of the toilet as well as the implc- 
 plements of various trades. 
 
 The stuffs found there consist in gauzes, silks, damasks and satins, made 
 of pure silk or mixed with flax, woollens, linens and gobelin tapestries — 
 and are striped, rainbowed, flowered etc. by means of weaving, embroidery, 
 or stamping. — The embroidery is executed on a ground formed in close 
 textiles by leaving or drawing out the weft for a certain width, and in gauzes 
 and muslins by pushing it apart. — The design was embroidered upon the 
 threads of the warp with a coarse white thread. 
 
 XX. Screen. 
 
 N.° XX. is a water-colour drawing from the Egyptian Museum in Flo- 
 rence shewing part of a border worked in this way, and which had been 
 sewn on a linen tunic of which a piece still remains as foundation. 
 
 XXII. A. Screen. 
 
 XXII. A. shews a piece of the same work inserted in the material OH 
 the bias, Here we appear to lie lace to lace with Puitto Ttrato or Kcticclla, 
 but alas, we soon discover that this resemblance is illusory, caused by the 
 
46 
 
 gnawing fangs of Time which have eaten away the woollen filling made in 
 real Gobelin stitch to form the ground, the white threads having only served 
 to outline the design and to constitute a framework for dividing the colours. 
 
 XXI. } XXII. B. Screen. 
 
 XXII. B. represents XXII. A. filled in with Gobelin stitch : 
 XXI. shews us the wrong as well as the right side of a piece of fin- 
 ished embroidery. 
 
 XXIV. Screen. 
 
 XXIV. represents a piece of later embroidery or gobelins of a period 
 at which the white outlining had ceased to be used ; the figures in this are 
 roughly shaded, precisely as in the tapestry or the Middle Ages. The above 
 articles date from the fourth to the seventh century of our Era. 
 
 We will now examine the real pieces of stuff. 
 
 XXV. A. Screen. 
 
 XXV. A. is a medallion of embroidery which has lost nearly all its 
 woollen filling, and therefore excellently serves to illustrate the process fol- 
 lowed in making trimmings. In order to accelerate the production of the 
 latter, the weaver made strips of belting of the desired width, — notice the 
 selvage on the sides and the raw edge at the ends — and wove a bleached 
 woof into an unbleached twine warp, counting the stitches and so leaving 
 out a perfect oval of twine grounding of the required size and shape on 
 which the embroideress could begin to work without wasting time in draw- 
 ing out the threads of the material. — One corner is turned over to shew 
 the wrong side of the work, the outlining being executed in a kind of back- 
 stitch. 
 
 XXV. B. Screen. 
 
 XXV. B. is the piece of linen on -which the above embroidery, A. was 
 sewed; the coarse threads are left in it,, shewing that, to keep the medal- 
 lion from slipping while attaching it to the material destined to receive it,' 
 it was basted across the middle in both directions, after which it was whipped 
 neatly round the edge, the raw ends being turned in. 
 
 XXV. C. Screen. 
 
 XXV. C. is part of a medallion of the same design but in better pre- 
 servation. The ground is filled in with red wool, and the white scrolls and 
 circles with various colours. — In the center of this piece of work is the 
 conventional little bust of Christ with a glory, surrounded by a black border 
 
47 
 
 which is patterned in small crosses of red, green and yellow; this, as is in- 
 dicated l)y the scrolls in the design, is early Byzantine work and is graceful 
 despite the presence of the inartistic little bust. 
 
 XX VI. Screen. 
 
 XXVI. is the same ornament, introduced in very fine linen in a space 
 left in the weaving; as in the unemhroidered piece of XVIII. R, it is more 
 antique and artistic in design than XXV. C, being work of the best Roman 
 period when embroideries were alw ays made with a ground of solid colour, 
 generally either black, or one of the numerous shades of purple, with white 
 outlining. The piece is probably a remnant of a woman's tunic manufactured 
 about 300 A. B. 
 
 XX I'll. Screen. 
 
 XXVII. is of the same period as XXVI. but is of coarser material and 
 execution, and may have formed the widened shoulder embroidery of a cla- 
 vem-trimmcd tunic; its purple colour denotes the Roman citizenship of the 
 wearer : 
 
 XX I'll J. Screen. 
 
 XXVIII. is part of a square of stuff woven at the same period, but 
 the ground is left of warp alone, the weaver having stopped the woof on 
 each side when he reached the space to be embroidered, thus forming a 
 selvage. Judging from the wrong side, which is too untidy — owing to the 
 long threads hanging from it — for that of a toga, this piece of stuff seems 
 to have formed part of a tunic; the outlining in the embroidery was exe- 
 cuted after the space had been filled in with the woollen ground; the stitches 
 resemble those used in outlining Sicilian drawn lace. 
 
 XXIX. Screen. 
 
 XXIX. is of the same period; it is a black border worked — with equal 
 neatness on both sides — in a strip of warp left in the weaving of a fine 
 linen toga. The design represents a grape vine with the white thread worked 
 in before introducing the coloured wool. 
 
 XXX. Screen. 
 
 XXX. is a piece of border of more recent execution ; it is artistically 
 drawn, and represents a purple dog, with red tongue and leading strings, 
 playing in a circle formed by two interlaced scrolls; the angles are filled 
 
48 
 
 with red or green leaves. This border probably trimmed the toga of some 
 child, since the effect is very youthful in comparison with all the other pieces 
 in our collection. 
 
 XXXI. Screen. 
 
 XXXI. and the two following numbers date back at least to the V. 
 century. XXXI is coarsely executed in narrow stripes of dark ecru running, 
 at regular intervals, along the length of the white etamine-like material ; 
 between these stripes a basket of flowers is worked in parti-coloured wools 
 and without any white outlining. The basket is purple, with yellow and while 
 designs; the flowers are indicated by vermilion and white spots on a dark 
 red ground, surrounded by green leaves, This embroidery must have deco- 
 rated a woman's toga or pallium, and have been repeated at regular inter- 
 vals along the border. 
 
 XXXII. A., B., C. Screen. 
 
 XXXII. A., B. C. are ends of scarfs, shewing their entire width, be- 
 longing to the seventh or eighth century of our era. XXXII. A. ends in a fringe 
 above which narrow stripes of red wool are introduced after an inch of 
 plain weaving in linen thread; then follow six inches of plain weaving and 
 a space of four inches of warp left for the embroidered Gobelin border. This 
 border has a red ground, framed on either side by a black stripe edged with 
 yellow, and dotted with little yellow squares at regular intervals. — Three 
 shields, which may have been coats of arms, divided by rows of a kind of 
 herring-bone stitch in white and yellow are embroidered on the red band; 
 recurring between these are allegorical designs representing the Tree of Life. 
 The middle shield is charged with a green parrot with yellow legs, outlined 
 in black and white, the other two with white lions are outlined in black; 
 everything is upside down, shewing that the embroidery must have been done 
 before the material was removed from the loom. 
 
 XXXI I. B. Screen. 
 
 XXXII. B. is a scarf end of coarse muslin, such as is to-day in use 
 in the East. The design is embroidered in the same back-stitch as in the 
 ordinary kind of Oriental reversible needle-work. Its discovery is a trea- 
 sure trove for our branch of textile art, for it has a border about the edge, 
 overcasting and ornamenting the hem, which very much resembes modern 
 Turkish work, and is the first example we possess of stitches similar to those 
 used in oriental embroidery of which a small, three-cornered piece has been 
 placed beside it. 
 
49 
 
 XXX. C. Screen. 
 
 XXXII. C. is woven in the same way as XXXII, A.; the embroidery 
 is however, worked in Gobelin stitch, and imitates the jewelled borders we 
 see on the Byzantine mosaics of this period. 
 
 XXXIII. A., II, C. Screen. 
 
 XXXIII. A. is a paralellogram of pure Gobelin tapestry sewed on a 
 piece of fine linen, and so cunningly worked with the needle in divers co- 
 lours that when new it must have been resplendent. Each upper corner of 
 the design contains a duck standing on its tail, with its feet turned to the 
 right and its beak to the left. In the middle of the design is a saint with 
 a sword in his right hand, seated on a throne: along the lower border we 
 discover what, with the aid of a lively imagination, we may suppose to be 
 yellow dogs or lions seated on their haunches. Two oblong bias strips 
 placed at right angles to the saint's neck, and having narrow black borders 
 spotted with yellow, are adorned with four ducks each, all in a row and 
 standing on their tails, with carefully embroidered feet and toes in mid-air 
 to the right of their breasts. — The visitor to the Italian section may not 
 discover all these details for himself, but it is well to know that they exist, 
 as it shews the ludicrous combinations which the debasement of drawing, 
 and its subservience to the frenzy for colour was capable of producing at 
 the epoch of Byzantine supremacy. 
 
 XXXIII B. is a piece of belting; both the warp and the woof in it 
 are of a fine indigo colour, embroidered with white thread in a conventional 
 pattern by darning, which produces a pretty eflect resembling " Alt Deutsch " 
 work. 
 
 XXXIII. C. is a red stripe darned into a coarse muslin and evidently 
 forming the border of a woman's garment. The effect obtained in the treat- 
 ment of the design also has its counterpart in work of the XV. century in 
 Europe; its particular interest with regard to the subject we are treating lies 
 in the fact that between the rows of darned work the threads of the textile 
 have been removed, and the remaining threads caught together by hemstitch- 
 ing. The corners of the two samples are turned over to shew the w ork on 
 the wrong side. 
 
 XXXI V. Screen. 
 
 XXXIV. is interesting, first because stripes of quadruple woof are in- 
 troduced at regular intervals: secondly because the open warp, which has 
 been made to take the forms of birds and tiny squares, w as not picked out 
 but was made to assume these shapes in the weaving: and thirdly because 
 the fringe is hemstitched just as it would be on an article manufactured 
 to-day. 
 
 7 
 
50 
 
 XXXV. Screen. 
 
 In XXXV. we have the sheer material we call gauze, so often de- 
 picted on vases and monuments as forming the garments of the goddesses 
 and women of Greece, Etruria and Rome, two of which are reproduced in 
 XXV. and XXXVII. Homer frequently mentions this gauze : thus in Canto V. 
 of the Iliad : 
 
 " Pallas disrobes; her radiant veil untied 
 With flowers adorned, with art diversified. „ 
 
 And in Canto VI. id.: 
 
 " The Phrygian Queen to her rich wardrobe went, 
 „ Where treasured odours breathed a costly scent: 
 „ There lay the vestures of no vulgar art; 
 „ Sidonian maids embroidered every part, 
 „ Whom from soft Sidon youthful Paris bore 
 „ With Helen, touching on the Tyrian shore ; 
 „ Here as the Queen revolved with careful eyes 
 „ The various textures and the various dyes, 
 „ She chose a veil that shone superior far, 
 „ And glowed refulgent as the morning star. „ 
 
 And in the Odyssey he describes it as forming part of the costume 
 of Ulysses : 
 
 " Fine as a filmy web beneath it shone 
 
 „ A vest that dazzled like a cloudless sun. „ 
 
 Lucian, in recounting the feast offered to Csesar by Cleopatra, says 
 that the queen's costume consisted of wondrous web of thin, transparent 
 lawn ; this doubtless means a gauze embroidered in silk, like XXXV., which 
 is unique, and represents two crested birds executed in embroidery such as 
 is produced to-day in large quantities at Delhi and in other parts of India. 
 This material may have been imported from that country. Pliny records the 
 tradition of this kind of garment into Europe, and describes its manfacture 
 in silk. 
 
 XXXVI. Screen. 
 
 N.° XXXVI, is a gauze veil made in dark blue wool; it has a fringe 
 made of the warp twisted and knotted: a white silk and red wool stripe 
 forms the edge above this fringe, and several other stripes are woven in the 
 material at regular intervals some of which are embroidered with darned 
 work in white silk, in letters and geometrical designs, so that what forms 
 
51 
 
 the relief on the right side constitutes the ground on the reverse, as in the 
 netting described at XXXIV. C. 
 
 We have now reached the limit of close embroidery, or embroidery 
 without real open work in the design. 
 
 XXXVII. A., B., C. Cases. 
 
 A Turkish scarf, XXXVII. B., belonging to Hcrr von Ugon, will be 
 found in the glass cases near the African work. It is of about the same width 
 as the scarfs XXII. A. B. C, and is embroidered with gold and silver and 
 shaded silks on a cotton-muslin ground with the same stitches as are found 
 in Byzantine work; the silver thread draws the light ground together in the 
 hearts of the flowers with the effect of Sicilian point; a scallop in gold thread 
 button-hole stitch runs round the edge and forms a regular needle lace. 
 
 XXXVII. A. is a broader scarf belonging to the same exhibitor; it is 
 of the same period but is much more complicated in execution. Hungarian 
 and Roumanian embroidery of the present day have preserved and developed 
 the traditions of this work. The lace about the edge is of a curious pattern, 
 being a kind of Macrame made with the needle. 
 
 XXXVII, also belongs to Hcrr von Ugon's collection; it is the knee- 
 covering of a pair of breeches from the island of Rhodes. The coloured em- 
 broidery has the geometrical designs of XXXIV. C. made in the early Sici- 
 lian stich, but without the second, smaller one which, used alternately, draws 
 the ground together and forms the open work or small chequers from which 
 the laces with tulle grounds have been evolved. A veritable Reticella in white 
 silk runs between the coloured bands: its stitch is woven upon the threads 
 left by drawing out the woof and is identical with that used in embroidered 
 lacis and in Gobelins embroidery, so that the varied openings and simple 
 stitches of this narrow insertion may serve to bridge the the chasm that lies 
 between the coarse close Gobelin ornaments in dyed wool, and the airy fa- 
 brics of Venetian points and guipures. 
 
 XXXIX. Screen. 
 
 XXXIX. is a veil of antique embroidered muslin such as Turkish 
 ladies are in the habit of keeping within easy reach to throw quickly over 
 their heads on the entrance of a visitor. This veil is a modification of the 
 classic and more voluminous Palia which was evolved from the women's 
 head covering of the time of Moses. The design is thoroughly Jewish or As- 
 syrian in character, with its stiff trees and regular flower-pots disposed in 
 conventional niches with a minaret over each, all done in fine needle-work 
 on a ground of Sicilian point. Pots of lovely silk flowers and baby-trees, 
 worked in exquisite needle Point without any foundation hang all along the 
 edges of this veil, recalling to mind the purple and scarlet pomegranates 
 
52 
 
 that hung between the bells at the botton of Aaron's Ephod. They are made 
 on a narrow, black silk heading and are afterwards sewed onto the veil; 
 the stitch in which they are worked is the same as that used in the Ogow6 
 cap: they are essentially Panto in Aria, and in consequence real lace. 
 
 XL. Cases. 
 
 This work is complicated in design and difficult of execution ; it is 
 still made in Turkey and always imitates flowers, leaves, and bell-shaped 
 birds or fruits. The Turkish Ambassador in Rome — who with kindly in- 
 terest obtained for us the seven pretty examples we exhibit in N. XL. — 
 informed us that the Turkish word used to designate this lace is the same 
 that is used for fuchsias, hare bells and other pendent flowers, as well as 
 for pendent ornaments and earrings. 
 
 XLI. A. and B. Cases. 
 
 XLI. A. and B. are other pieces of Turkish lace which belong to Lady 
 Layard; the material is white silk, and they were made according to the old 
 Turkish system in the embroidery schools founded under her Ladyship's au- 
 spices in Constantinople. In these laces the garlands and sprays of flowers are 
 made to interlace, while preserving the bell-like characteristic of the antique 
 from which their designs are adopted. 
 
 Modern Turkish ladies dress like their European sisters, and the 
 real and imitation lace they wear is all sent with their toilettes from Paris; 
 but these veils and scarfs, which have resisted the innovations of modern 
 fashion, are, on arriving, still trimmed with narrow Turkish edgings. — The 
 Constantinople school of embroidery has revived many old stitches and de- 
 signs, and tends to keep up the artistic traditions of Turkish needle-work, 
 and its influence is greatly appreciated by English visitors and tradesmen. 
 
 It seems to me that, on emerging from the barbarous state attendant 
 on the decline and fall of the Western Empire, the peoples of Europe began to 
 realize the attraction of riches obtained by peaceful barter and sale instead of 
 being snatched with rude violence from weaker neighbours, to be shortly again 
 lost by the same lawless means; and the desire of artistically adorning their 
 churches — no longer threatened with perpetually recurring pillage and de- 
 struction — returned with the realization of stable fortune. 
 
 Hidden away from the din and clatter of arms raised by the boister- 
 ous race which had poured out from the North and over-run fair Italy, the 
 sister arts of embroidery and lace-making practised by the cunning daughters 
 of the needle were still to be found in the dwellings of the Jewish and 
 Oriental merchants who had settled on every part of the Mediterranean Coast. 
 Rich and 'rare mediaeval silk laces, unequalled even by the most celebrated 
 specimens preserved in the Christian churches and cathedrals, are still to be 
 
53 
 
 found in the old Italian synagogues. — The energy that predominates in the 
 European character belonged alike to Jewish teachers and to Christian pu- 
 pils, and caused them to exercise their vivid imagination in the development 
 of these arts into products of rare beauty, whereas the embroiderers of 
 Oriental races have ever been governed by a conservatism which has caused 
 them to remain unaltered for centuries, thus preserving for us the type 
 of needle- work that was used on Aaron's Ephod three thousand years 
 ago. 
 
 All the silk passementerie, the gold, silver and polychrome lace of the 
 early Renaissance were made by the [ews, who were also the chief produ- 
 cers of other varieties of lace in Spain where this people exhibited much 
 greater luxury in the appointments of their places of worship, as well as in 
 their homes, than did the Christians. 
 
 When they were reduced to penury by perpetual persecution and con- 
 fiscation, and when they were finally expelled from Spain, they made use 
 of their arts to maintain themselves in their places of refuge, and as there 
 was a constantly increasing demand for trimmings and laces all over South- 
 ern Europe, they employed apprentices — who soon became skilled work- 
 women — to help them to execute the numerous orders they received. These 
 pupils became teachers in their turn and spread the knowledge of and taste 
 for these fabrics, and when another wave of persecution came, this time 
 turned against the protectants, a great many of them, — who for the same 
 reason as the Spanish Jews had become diligent lace makers — emigrated to 
 England, to protestant Germany and to Sw eden, carryng with them the tra- 
 dition of the art ever further a field. 
 
 Perhaps, like many ceremonies in the Christian Church, the custom of 
 using fringes and laces on the vestments and church linen may have been 
 imitated from the Jewish ritual, though, when intolerance and cruelty to- 
 wards the Hebrew Race prevailed in the Middle Ages, the Christian women 
 developed new varieties of lace, their piety being intensified by horror at 
 the thought of decking the altar consecrated to the Holy Trinity with the 
 work of unbelievers. — The art, once developed, became a source of amuse- 
 ment and rivalry in the narrow lives of cloistered women, and they dedicated 
 all those energies which were deprived of natural outlets to the invention 
 of new stitches and more wonderful traceries, until the superb Venetian point 
 laces and needle paintings sprang into existence. Hut whence came Bobbin 
 or Pillow Lace? When was it invented? A blue lace bound the diadem on 
 the brow of the Jewish High Priest : this lace must have been not a simple 
 cord — but a flat fabric — for tradition says it was wrought in colour, and 
 fringed at the ends, hence it was probably worked with bobbins. 
 
 Writers about laces have filled pages with speculations, quoted from 
 Moses and the Prophets, and ended with the assertion that the first positive 
 evidence of the existence of Bobbin lace is an Italian document of the XV 
 century — of which we shall later on reproduce a part, — and a Dutch 
 
54 
 
 wood-cut of the XVI century ; and this while the sands of Egypt and the 
 rich soil of Italy were reserving their evidence. 
 
 Like the Tartars of to-day, the Phrygians, Assyrians, Persians and other 
 peoples of South-Western Asia all wore conical caps, and introduced their use 
 into the countries to which they emigrated, or with which they traded. The 
 Phrygians, who very early over-ran Northern Greece, introduced into that 
 country the use of woollen caps during the winter, and of flax nets or conical 
 fillets in summer. Caps became the fashion in Egypt with the introduction 
 of the religion of Mythras by the Persians. 
 
 This form of head covering was considered a sign of freedom, and no 
 slaves were allowed to wear it. The ceremony of freeing a slave consisted 
 precisely in placing a red cap on his head and acclaiming him as an equal. 
 This cap was sometimes truncated like the fe\, and in this form it must have 
 ^iven origin to that Mahometan head covering, just as in the original pointed 
 shape it became the model of the Doge's Corno, as also of the Liberty caps 
 placed on the heads of Britannia and her fair daugther Columbia. 
 
 In the days of the French craze for classicism the Republicans re- 
 dyed this emblem in the blood of aristocrats, and waving it aloft as their 
 standard, acclaimed it with its original name of " Phrygian,,. — Caps of this 
 shape must have become the fashion at the time when the Persian religion 
 of Mythras gained ascendency among civilized nations just before he Christ- 
 ian era, when its communistic tenets resisted the Christian religion in Rome 
 even after the general conversion of the Latins, and had so strongly im- 
 pressed the popular mind that some of its forms have survived in the pre- 
 sent rules of Free-Masonry. 
 
 XLII. Screen. 
 
 N.° XLII. is a drawing taken from a bas-relief in the Louvre, and 
 represents these caps as worn by the priests of Mythras. We may iudge from 
 the numbers of fragments found in the graves in Panapolis that they were 
 very much in fashion. 
 
 XLV. Screen. 
 
 N.° XLV. is a section of a truncated cap; the little sketches A. B. C. D. 
 shew the way in which they were worn, and that their shape must have 
 greatly resembled the knitted and crocheted ones worn by our own young 
 people. — The winter caps were made of red wool, or were striped in co- 
 lours, while a cord ran round the edge to tighten them if necessary. 
 
 XL VI. A. Screen and XL VII. A., B.. C. idem. 
 
 XLVI. and XLVII. A, are also parts of these caps, while XLVT. and 
 XLVII. B- are new pieces that were copied from them by the young lace- 
 
55 
 
 makers in the school at Brazza. XLVII. C. is a photograph of some frag- 
 ments numbered 12, 15, 16 of the same kind of work. These caps are neither 
 knitted nor crocheted, for the meshes do not consist of loops; neither are 
 they embroidered, for the threads are continuous and we find no knots. All 
 the learned professors who have seen them unite in saying they were inter- 
 laced by fingers, but how they cannot tell, as they have found no lace-bobbins 
 in connection with them: stilt they were made with bobbins, since, without a 
 reel at the end of the threads to shorten them to the desired length for work- 
 ing, — by winding them round something heavy — it would be quite im- 
 possible to avoid most hopeless tangles and interminable series of Gordian 
 knots. Allowing for the difference in wool, and for the regularity produced 
 by constantly working at the same design, the copies made by the inex- 
 perienced Italian children in the lace school are not bad; the girls worked by 
 interlacing two bobbins instead of the four that are at present used in the 
 manufacture of lace, and they had to twirl the bobbins from left to right, 
 which is the contrary of the twist now given and very aggravating to mod- 
 em workers. 
 
 XLVII. B., C, I). Screen. 
 
 XLVII. B. C. D. shew the manner of wearing these caps and the sum- 
 mer thread linen nets in ancient times, as also a Neapolitan fisherman with 
 one of these same caps which are still worn by men of his class along the 
 coasts of Italy, Spain and France. 
 
 XLVIII. Screen. 
 
 XLVIII. is a perfectly preserved quarter of one of these thread nets 
 bound with red wool. 
 
 XLIX. Screen. 
 
 XLIX. is a quarter of a lace net executed in a different design. 
 L. Screen. 
 
 L. is a well preserved and fresh looking half net of more elaborate 
 lace, executed with remarkable precision. 
 
 LI. Cases. 
 
 LI. is unique of its kind, being a complete lace net or bonnet made 
 of soft thread with red binding: it has been placed on a barber's poll to shew 
 how these nets were worn. 
 
56 
 
 LII. Cases. 
 
 LII. gives an idea of a classic lace cushion with the same kind of lace 
 mounted on it in process of execution by means of wooden bobbins copied 
 from the bone ones of that epoch; for, mirabile dicta, last May (l89 2 ) while 
 we in Rome were planning our Exhibit, Professor E. Brizio, Director of the 
 Etruscan Museum in Bologna, was excavating among the ruins of the old 
 Roman town of Claterna, ten miles from Bologna on the Emilian Way, and 
 which S. Ambrose describes as already ruinous in A. D. 393. Here, at the 
 bottom of a filled-up well, of Roman construction, the Professor found a 
 quantity of small, solid, long, wasp-shaped cylinders, the use of which he 
 could not understand, as they resembled none of the Roman implements 
 with which he was acquainted ; this was quite natural, considering that lace- 
 making by no means formed part of his professional acquirements or teaching, 
 and moreover that he lives in a part of the world where lace is not pro- 
 duced; the mystery was, however, soon cleared up for him; one day he 
 happened to pass a bric-a-brac shop in the window of which was a com- 
 pletely equipped lace-maker's pillow which attracted his attention; he at once 
 recognized that the bobbins hanging thereto were the exact counterparts 
 of his curious bone cylinders, and therefore felt convinced that he beheld the 
 solution of the mystery which surrounded not only them but also another 
 similar instrument which had been for years in the Bologna Museum. Another 
 proof which of course neither he, nor anyone who had not been accustomed 
 to lace -making could have recognized lay in the fact that these ancient 
 bobbins were found in couples, or in groups of couples, with the exception 
 of one, which was reduced to fragments. The Professor kindly furnished me 
 with fac-similia of these valuable documents in the history of lace making, 
 and they are shewn under numbers 
 
 I All. and LIV. 
 
 LIV. A. is a double-hooked crochet needle which has, for many years, 
 formed part of the collection in the Bologna Museum ; its origin is quite 
 unknown, although supposed to be Greek. — Cavaliere Augusto Castellani's 
 superb collection of Etruscan and Roman Antiquities contains many of these 
 bobbins, but they were purchased by him, among numbers of other Roman 
 relics, in the old-fasioned way, without enquiry as to the circumstances at- 
 tending their discovery and they therefore attracted no particular attention ; 
 indeed, owing to their shape, they were thought to be a kind of stylus, for 
 writing on a waxed surface, the round head being taken for a classic rubber 
 for cancelling errors. Signor Castellani however became of another opinion 
 when he observed that the knobs were often sharp or jagged, and that the 
 end which should — if a stylus — have been pointed, was usually as blunt 
 as the knob. 
 
57 
 
 The pioneers of pillow lace in the XVII. century found the semibar- 
 barous peasant and fisherwomen in the Hartz mountains and on the coast of 
 the North Sea, making clastic caps and nets for the men by plaiting threads 
 together by means of rude bone bobbins, used by twos instead of by fours, 
 thus following the same process the Brazza lace girls were obliged to adopt 
 in imitating the Panopolis lace nets. History adds that these women learned 
 the art of complicated lace making with surprising rapidity, and quickly 
 became proficient and artistic workwomen. 
 
 The Neapolitan fishermen and the Spanish muleteers of to-day both 
 " on and off the stage ", cover their locks with pointed nets made of red 
 silk or wool, and gallants and pages in the time of the Troubadours wore 
 them, as we see in portraits and historical paintings. — In England the old 
 lace makers in Devonshire call their bobbins bones, because they say that 
 formerly they were made of small pieces of sheep's bones, and owing to 
 this they call their bobbin lace bone lace. The early annals of England and 
 of other countries mention teaching new stitches and designs, and contain 
 notes on the importation of clever teachers from other parts to instruct the 
 natives in new stitches and fresh designs, but not with the object of found- 
 ing a new industry. — We may thus consider pillow-lace to be a direct 
 inheritance from classic times; an inheritance which, though possessed of rich 
 possibilities, long lay fallow, till in the XV. and XVI. centuries it was found 
 of easy cultivation and productive of most gorgeous blossoms. — Perhaps a 
 longer and closer study than is possible during the few months at our com- 
 mand, in which to prepare this exhibit, would bring to light more facts about 
 the origin of this art, reaching even still further into the remote Past. 
 
 After the long journeys we have made far afield in search of the earliest 
 proofs of the manufacture of lace, we will now enter the fair garden in which 
 the splendid flowers and luxuriant grasses of Nature have been transformed by 
 the magic of gentle fingers into beautiful, curious, and everlasting hybrids, that 
 European kingdom in which the ideal and the material are continually at war 
 and yet exert a happy reaction on each other, and once in Italy we need 
 not again leave that sunny land, for busy merchants will bring to its markets 
 the produce of other countries and will recount narratives of what they saw 
 there. But before crossing the threshold of the Middle Ages we must take 
 one more peep below the soil and see what remains of the Umbrians and 
 Etrurians, of the civilized inhabitants of Italy when the land was young. 
 
 LV. Wall. 
 
 LV. represents an Umbrian cinerary urn of the VIII. century B. C. 
 These urns were always covered with a veil or cloth, and the rude draw- 
 ings that decorate them usually represent a net with dentated edges, trimmed 
 with tassels, and much resembling the nets used in the well-known Gitana 
 or Spanish Gipsy costume. 
 
 8 
 
58 
 
 L VI. Screen. 
 
 LVI. is the design of an archaic Greek figure, with borders painted on 
 the garments to represent coloured embroidery. Some writers on lace speak 
 of such borders as evidencing the use of bobbin lace at that period, but it 
 strikes me that this is a weak foundation on which to build such an argument. 
 
 LVII. Screen. 
 
 LVII. is a figure of Minerva, copied from the painting on one of the 
 Parthenopean vases, of about the IV. century B. C. 
 
 XXX VIII. Screen. 
 
 XXXVIII. is a charmingly graceful figure of the same goddess, beau- 
 tifully drawn, from an exquisite vase in the Etruscan Museum in Rome : it 
 most decidedly appears to reproduce a kind of open work that adorns the 
 edge of her lighter garments. Besides this figure, on the same card, is a bi- 
 furcated netting needle, natural size, [exactly like those which are found in 
 great numbers in the Tiber, and which must have been used in making fine 
 hair-nets. 
 
 L VIII. Screen, 
 
 LVIII. represents a gold bracelet or cuff of the VI. or VII. century 
 B. C. The original of this bracelet was evidently copied from needle-work 
 consisting of drawn work alternated with linen bands; it was found in the 
 Vetulonian excavations in 1890, and is now in the Etruscan Museum in 
 Florence. The Director of that Institution, the first of its kind in Italy, told 
 me that ample proofs exist of the use of delicate embroidery, open work 
 and nets for the adornment of apparel and the toilette by Greeks and Etrus- 
 cans, but he is of the opinion that pillow lace, made with bobbins, was 
 unknown to them. While talking with this Professor in his study, I ob- 
 served there a Greek platter, of the end of the V. century, made of rare 
 white patrina and adorned with the figure of Arachne, the rash nymph who 
 dared to compete with Minerva in the arts of the loom and the needle, and 
 who was, in consequence, transformed by the irate goddess into a spider and 
 condemned for ever to weave those magic circles, those airy webs which are 
 rivalled by the lace fabrics produced by human fingers. 
 
 This Greek legend may be based on some fact adorned by the ro- 
 mantic imagination of a bygone poet, or it may have originated in metaphor 
 alone : in any case it inspired the charming odes of the Renaissance, in which 
 the poets unanimously attribute the invention of embroidery to Minerva, 
 while they ascribe that of the subtler and more delicate art of lace making 
 
59 
 
 to Arachne. They entwine, in their lays, the ancient Greek fable with the 
 arts, and with the designations of lace stitches with quaint effect, even as 
 the fair fingers whose praises they sang so deftly interlaced the threads of 
 silk and gold. 
 
 Thus Agnolo Firenzuolo who, in about 1520, wrote his Elegia sopra 
 un collaretto, describes, with loving, lingering detail, a piece of lace that had 
 caught his fancy: 
 
 Questo collar scolpe da donna mia 
 This collar was sculptured by my lady 
 Di basso rilevar ch' Arachne mai 
 In has reliefs such as Arachne 
 E chi la rinse non /aria piii bello. 
 And she who conquered her could ne'er excel. 
 Mir a quel bel fogliame ch'un Acanlo 
 Look on that lovely foliage, like an Acanthus, 
 Sembra che sopra tin mur rada carponi. 
 Which o'er a wall its graceful branches trails. 
 Mira quel for ch'un candido ne cade 
 Look on those lovely flowers of purest white 
 Vicino al seme ap'ar la bacia ialtro. 
 Which, near the pods that open, hang in harmony. 
 Quel cordiglin, ch' I leg an d'ognitorno 
 That little cord that binds each one about 
 Come ci lev an ben! mosirando ch' ella 
 How it projects! proving that she who wrought 
 E la vera maestra di quest' arte. 
 Is very mistress of this art. 
 Come son ben compartiti quei punti! 
 How well distributed are all those points! 
 Ve come son rigual quei boltoncelli. 
 See the equality of all those little buds 
 Come s'al\ano in guisa d un bel colle, 
 Which rise like many fair proportioned hills, 
 L' un come V altro .... 
 One like the other .... 
 Questi merli di man, questi trafori 
 This hand made lace, this open work 
 Eece pur ella, e questa punta a spina 
 Is all produced by her, this herring bone 
 Che mette in me\\o questo cordon at to. 
 Which in the midst holds down a little cord. 
 Ella il fe pure : ella lo fece 
 Was also made bv her; all wrought by her. 
 
6o 
 
 LXVI1. Screen. 
 
 LXVII. and the following numbers are specimens of the various im- 
 plements made use of in spinning, embroidery and lace making in all times. 
 
 L VII. Wall. 
 
 LVII is a distaff, used for spinning flax, and was made by a peasant 
 of Moruzzo, the township in the Province of Friuli in which the Castello di 
 Brazza is situated. — This distaff ends in a coloured ball, and is most beau- 
 tifully and artistically carved, the inspiration of the original designs having 
 come from the heart of the carver who made it as a gift for his future 
 wife; on it he has represented their persons, their homes and their hearts; 
 four-leaved clovers, horse-shoes, and an infinity of other emblems of love 
 and fortune ; pendent from it is the spindle, and it is hung to the wall by 
 means of the wrought brass pins by which our peasant women support the 
 distaff, utilizing their belts as rests while spinning as a they walk, or when 
 following their sheep to pasture. 
 
 LX VI. Wall 
 
 LXVI. was carved by the same man later in life as a present to his 
 daughter; the hearts are therefore represented as having flowered, truly a 
 very pretty and poetic conceit, while the point consists of the brass fork 
 used in spinning wool. — These two simple implements, rendered so beau- 
 tiful by the hand of love, form a true illustration of the affectionate cha- 
 racter and devotion to the beautiful that distinguishes the Italians; hence it 
 is that the graceful arts of lace making and straw plaiting come naturally to 
 every daughter ot the people. 
 
 L VIII. Cases. 
 
 I. 2. 3. 4. 5. 7. 8- 9- arc specimens of spindle whirls used in spinning 
 by hand in different parts of the world; they date from the Stone Age and 
 its Lake Dwellers down to the present day. The spinning-wheel was invented 
 and adopted in Europe at an early date, but the women in certain parts of 
 Italy still make use of the old-fasioned distaff, which enables them to spin 
 at odd times when it would be impossible to use a wheel. 
 
 LVII I. 6. Cases. 
 
 LV1I1. 6. was found in Greece, and is a complete ivory spindle of classic 
 times ; such specimens as this are extremely rare. 
 
6i 
 
 LVIII. 10. Cases. 
 
 LVIII. 10. is the only ancient wooden spindle with earthenware whirl 
 attached to it as yet discovered ; it was found at Achmim Panapolis and may 
 have served to spin the flax of which some of our specimens are woven. 
 
 LX. Cases. 
 
 LX. 1. to 23, are Peruvian specimens, and are particularly interesting 
 as they date from an epoch long anterior to the event we are now cele- 
 brating: the discovery of America by Columbus. They are also especially 
 interesting in connection with our subject, as the mummies with which they 
 were found were swathed with the same description of textiles as those di- 
 scovered at Achmim, thus shewing that a kindred civilization existed in the 
 New World at an early date, since the evidence afforded by the one necro- 
 polis corroborates and completes that of the other. Here we have spindles, 
 knitting and other needles with the yarn still on them, and with small cases 
 to protect their points; here is also an ordinary ball of blue cotton which 
 might have come from the work-basket of any modern housewife. 
 
 LX.B. Cases. 
 
 LX. B. is a facsimile of the already mentioned double hooked cro- 
 chet needle preserved in the Etruscan Museum in Bologna. 
 
 LXl A. II, C, I). Cases. 
 
 LI. is a sketch of prehistoric needles by lkrr R. Forrer. It will be 
 noticed that A. and B., — natural size — which were taken from the homes 
 of the Cave Dwellers at Thaijngen, are more perfect in form than is D. a 
 bone needle — also natural size — of the Stone Age from the Lake-dwellings 
 at Banschanze on Lake Zurich. The Cave Dwellers were in many things more 
 civilized than were the Lake D'.vellers their successors, and must have em- 
 broidered on leather with quills and grasses as their prototypes the Esqui- 
 maux and the Alaskan Indians do to-day 
 
 • 
 
 LXl. D. Cases. 
 
 LXI. D is a drawing of a wooden hook preserved in the National Mu- 
 seum in Zurich. It has a disc as handle, evidently added to facilitate the 
 boring of holes in skins or textiles, while the hook served to draw through 
 the thread necessary to form a seam or fringe. 
 
LX1I. Cases. 
 
 LXII. consists of nine antique needles. N. os 1., 2., 3., 4. are specimens 
 of the early borers called prieme, the use of which preceded that of needles 
 as we now know them; and as 1 and 2 are made of rudely carved bone 
 and date from the Lake-dwellings of the Stone Age, N. os 3. and 4. are of 
 bronze, and are from the Lake dwellings of the Bronze Age. N.° 5. is a 
 knobbed prieme, or eyeless needle of horn, from the Lake dwellings of the 
 Stone Age ; a hole having been bored, this implement served to draw through 
 the thread tied to its knobbed head. N.° 6. is the same kind of instrument 
 from the Lake-dwellings of the Bronze Age. N.° 7. is a coarse, round eyed 
 needle of the Bronze Age, from Italy. N. u 8- is a fine, long-eyed needle of 
 the Bronze Age from the Lake dwellings of Grosserhafen on Lake Zurich. 
 
 LXIII. Cases. 
 
 LXIII. is a drawing of a most elegant needle stuck through a coil of 
 gold thread; it was found in a tomb at Visentium and is now in the Etrus- 
 can Museum in Florence. 
 
 LXV. Cases. 
 
 Under this head are exhibited six plaster fac-similes of the Roman bob- 
 bins found last May — 1893 — by Prof. Brizio at Claterna, which I have 
 already mentioned and which are now in the Bologna Museum ; the seventh 
 and smallest is the one which previously existed there. Finally, there are 
 four wooden bobbins, such as are used in the great centers of Italian Lace 
 making, viz. Venice, Genoa, and Cantii near Milan, as also one of the covered 
 kind used in Saxony which has been adopted in the schools at Brazza be- 
 cause it keeps the thread cleaner. 
 
 In closing this division of our book, which treats exclusively of the 
 production of woman's agile fingers when the art of needle making was in 
 its infancy, we present a little child's sock of rare value though apparently 
 worthless : 
 
 LVIII. Cases. 
 
 LVIII. is the earliest known specimen of knitting, an only sock found 
 in Achmim Panopolis; it is fibbed and striped in red, purple and black with 
 great neatness and loving care for the protection of the little foot in winter, 
 and is so perfectly preserved that one might doubt its authenticity did not 
 the divided toes and seamless heel — the instep being seamed instead — 
 prove it to have been made to wear with a sandal, of which the strap must 
 have worn the holes existing between the toes and the instep at least one 
 thousand five hundred years ago. 
 
63 
 
 As we look on this most ancient baby sock, this little relic so long 
 preserved in the vast ocean of Egyptian sands to be at length cast up for 
 our instruction, and to shew us that the world — in some things — has 
 not so much changed after all, we realize that loving mothers span and 
 knitted to keep their children warm, and that little ones ran and jumped and 
 wore out clothes and patience then just as they do now. Meditating on this 
 we cannot but feel a great sympathetic tenderness well up in our hearts for 
 those long past generations; the dust takes shape, the dry bones are again 
 clothed with life, and the little Christian lads of Panapolis, clattering through 
 the great gates, or off to school with carefully sandalled feet plainly rise 
 before the Mind's eye ; their agile bodies are clothed in tunics and w arm 
 togas trimmed with pretty designs illustrative of thoughts pleasing to chil- 
 dren, while their heads are covered with bright, snug woollen caps, and each 
 boy, with strapped tablets slung across a shoulder, gives himself an air of 
 importance and manliness though his young mind is much more intent on 
 fun and frolic and tricks innumerable than on the difficult passages in his 
 Commentaries of Julius Caesar, on his Latin Grammar, or his Greek translation. 
 
Pmp III. 
 
 ftljc $ma\$santt. 
 
 The word renaissance (literally rebirth) is accepted as the definition of 
 that awakening of the European mind to the beauties in nature, art and li- 
 terature from the profound sleep and troubled dreams of superstition, inter- 
 rupted by the long nightmares of barbarian and gothic invasion which fol- 
 lowed upon the fearful orgies in which the Roman Empire expired. 
 
 The Christian Church preserved a tradition of the Past in its teaching 
 and decorations, but the heavenly flame of art was so buried beneath the 
 ashes of strife, controversy and narrow-mindedness that the feeble spark which 
 perpetuated its eternal fire was unrecognizable. 
 
 In Byzantium alone it flickered up a little amid gorgeous costumes 
 and decorations of church and court which warmed the imagination; and here 
 as in Sicily — which, owing to its insular form and its Southern position 
 suffered less severely from invasions — we find that the gentle art of lace- 
 making continued. 
 
 When the Saracens conquered northern Africa, Sicily and Spain, they 
 caused the inhabitants to instruct them, as well as assist them in producing 
 and perfecting articles for which they were already celebrated. 
 
 LXX. Screen. 
 
 N.° LXX. from A. to J. inclusive, consist of a few precious rags from 
 an Hyspano-Moresque tomb of the eleventh or twelfth century. They fill the 
 void between the lace caps from Achmim-I'anopolis and the first examples 
 of Venetian work, and give us the earliest piece of point lace made entirely 
 with a needle and thread without other material used as a foundation. These 
 samples are in a much worse state of preservation and are much more fra- 
 gile than those from Achmim, being apparently records of a more remote 
 date, but this condition is produced by the difference of climate. 
 
 LXX. A. Screen. 
 
 LXX. A. is a piece of lace knotted as in putlio in aria, and made en- 
 tirely with the needle out of linen thread, waxed to stiffen it, and wound with 
 gold foil ; it forms a quarter o( a head-dress. 
 
 9 
 
66 
 
 LXX. B., C. Screen. 
 
 LXX. B. is a piece of red silk ribbon used to cover the seams of the 
 above mentioned head-dress, and is braided in fine gold or silver thread spun 
 with linen or cotton as is done in the East today. The design of the braid- 
 ing is roughly sketched by the side of the ribbon, as is also that of the 
 broader ribbon, LXX. C, used to edge the head-dress. 
 
 LXX. E. Screen. 
 
 LXX. E. is a piece of the finest gauze veiling woven of silk or flax; 
 it was evidently used under the head-dress and allowed to float loose over 
 the hair and shoulders so as to be drawn across the face when desired. 
 
 LXX. F. Screen. 
 
 ■ LXX. F. is a piece of the border of such a veil, wrought in silver, with 
 little groups of tiny silver tassels at regular intervals ; this must have had 
 a charming effect in the sunlight when all was new, white and dazzling. 
 
 LXX. H. Screen. 
 
 LXX. H. is a piece of thin material striped in silver and gold, such 
 as we call bayadere stuff, and may have formed the skirt or shawl of this 
 costume. 
 
 LXX. J. Screen. 
 
 LXX. J. is as a piece of the same kind of material bordered with a 
 very fine fringe, and must have formed part of a scarf or sash. 
 
 LXX. I. Screen. 
 
 LXX. I. is a piece of fine, thin cloth of gold. 
 
 LXX. G. Screen. 
 
 LXX. G. is a piece of real bobbin lace composed of fibre such as was 
 made everywhere in the islands and on the northern coast of the Medi- 
 terranean for centuries; it shews a great advance in workmanship from 
 the lace of Achmim-panopolis, for here the bobbins are used in pairs instead 
 of singly, just as every lace maker twirls them today. 
 
LXX. D. Screen. 
 
 67 
 
 In t he little stetch LXX. D. we have the whole head-dress reconstructed 
 in its bright original colours, and the mind at once reverts to the Crusades 
 and Richard Cceur de Lion, Saladin, and the fair women made so popular 
 by Sir Walter Scott in his novel of Ivanhoe; and as we continue to gaze 
 these heroes and heroines of a bygone age become materialised and move 
 and breathe in actual reality, called into life by these old moorish rags 
 which cause us to realize that with all the riches and barbaric splendour, 
 movement and strife of that epoch, the gentle art of lace-making continued 
 to develope. 
 
 Photograplis of Ravenna, with Countess Pasolini's 
 laces from the school of Coccolia. Cases. 
 
 Under the last of the Western Lmperors, the Goths and the Byzan- 
 tines, Rome was abandoned as the capital, and the seat of government in 
 Italy was transferred to the more easily fortified sta-port of Ravenna. In the 
 mosaics which adorn this city's unique Basilicas, which were constructed in 
 the VI. century, are found the only remains of European Art of that period; 
 and it will be seen from the photographs exhibited by Countess Pasolini 
 with the laces from her school at Coccolia, that the Empress Theodora and 
 the ladies who formed her court wore costumes composed of the same stuffs 
 as the fragments from Achmim. One of the ladies in particular carries a 
 worked and fringed veil over her arm, resembling those still in use in Turkey, 
 which is interesting as illustrating our special branch of textile art. 
 
 LXXI. Screen. 
 
 LXXI. is a narrow piece of blue bobbin lace of which three examples 
 only are known to exist in Italy. It was sent in the Eleventh Century from 
 Constantinople to Spezia, then known as Luili, The blue square mesh ground 
 is made entirely by bobbins, and is the same as that of all old Italian and 
 Sicilian lace resembling net. 
 
 It is embroidered, with little white birds made in the same darning 
 stitch that was used in the Gobelins style embroidery formed at Achmim. This 
 kind of lace must have been the Lacinia of the Latins (from which the 
 English term Lace is derived) and was in general use in the Twelfth and 
 Thirteenth centuries. References in old books are constantlly found to blue 
 " borders „ or " friezes „ embroidered in white birds and lions, which indi- 
 cates this kind of work. 
 
6 8 
 
 LXX1I. Cases. 
 
 N.° LXXII. is an altar cloth trimmed with a variety of this blue lace 
 embroidered in white, cxibited, as well as many of the following examples, 
 by M. rs Arthur Bronson of Venice; In it the design is of the Fifteenth Cen- 
 tury and the bobbin ground (called maglia quadra) and the embroidery are 
 much more roughly executed than N.° LXXl; it has pretty blue and white 
 antique pillow lace " campanc „ sewn on the edge. The mixing of two or 
 more colors was very fasionable, as were all the polychrome or divers-co- 
 loured laces in the Fifteenth Century. The perfection of the edging and the 
 negligence in the execution of the Byzantine lace in N.° LXXI. prove the 
 change of style which had occurred before its manufacture, for in the Fif- 
 teenth century this lace, which could but produce a stiff effect, rapidly lost 
 ground before the newer and more varied and graceful trimmings composed 
 of embroidered net " pun to a groppo „ now called Macrame and complicated 
 bobbin lace. 
 
 The following are examples of Byzantine lace or " Maglia quadra „ 
 and shew what rich effect could be produced in this simple kind of work 
 with symmetrical designs and a happy blending of materials and colors. 
 
 D. Cases. 
 
 N.° D. is made with a blue silk ground embroidered in buff silk and 
 white thread: it belongs to Signora Antonia Costa of Rome, as does 
 
 CCCCLXXXV11I. Cases. 
 
 N.° CCCCLXXXVIII. a piece made all in white linen thread, and which 
 was sewed on to the end of a towel. 
 
 LXXXVI. Cases. 
 
 N.° LXXXVI. is the same kind of lace producing a very different effect, 
 since the ground is made of aloe thread dyed brown and embroidered in 
 " pun to a sacchetti „ or square point, with an unconventional pattern executed 
 in silks and exquisitely tinted in browns and heliotrope greens and yellows. 
 
 LXXVIII. Cases. 
 
 N.° LXXVIII. belongs to M. rs Bronson. The ground is made with re- 
 markably soft ecru thread and embroidered vith " pun to a spina „ or "herring- 
 bone stitch „ in delicate buffs yellows and peacock blues and greens ; along 
 the edge runs a most interesting antique and rare polychrome " campanc „ 
 lace of fine silk, this repeats the colours and the design of the wider lace and 
 was evidently made on purpose to edge it. 
 
69 
 
 CCCXXXIX. Screen. 
 
 N." CCCXXXIX. is an interesting sample of the same, dating, to judge 
 from the design, from the Twelfth or Thirteenth Century, and is embroidered 
 in red and green silk. 
 
 CCCXLI. Screen. 
 
 N.° CCCXLI. is embroidered in cream and blue silk, and dates from 
 the Fourteenth Century. 
 
 CCCXLVll Screen. 
 
 N." CCCXLVll. is embroidered in red silk and belongs to the same 
 period. 
 
 CCCLV. and CCCLVII. Screen. 
 
 The design in N." s CCCLV. and CCCLII. indicates work of the early 
 part of the Sixteenth Century. Byzantine lace was also made in a modified 
 form entirely with bobbins and fine white thread, and was composed of narrow 
 stiffly flowered bands with a close ground, ornamented by the simple designs 
 left in open work. 
 
 XCV. Screen. 
 
 The sample, N.° XCV. and the frill in the pink and silver brocaded 
 babycap, as well as the following 
 
 CXXX. Cases. 
 
 N." CXXX. (of the Sixteenth Century) are of this lace; it was used 
 throughout Europe to trim baby clothes, and is still to be found on baptismal 
 garments — such as this brocaded cap — which have been religiously preserved 
 in certain old families on the Continent and in England from generation to 
 generation. M. M Bury Palliser, in her celebrated book on lace, speaks of this 
 as well as of " blue wedding lace „ made at Coventry, in England, during the 
 Middle Ages and distributed to all the members of a bridal party. She quotes 
 an account of Queen Elizabeth's visit to Kenilworth, in w hich the youths of the 
 parish are described as walking in front of the procession, carrying branches 
 of fresh broom and wearing " bine bridal lace „ as if they were grooms- 
 men at a wedding. With the spread of puritanism and of the harsh decrees 
 it inspired, this old custom, like many others, died out in England, as did also 
 the manufacture of the celebrated blue thread in Coventry. No relics of this 
 lace now remain, but it must have resembled the above examples. 
 
70 
 
 In this case, as in many others, we find proofs of the much earlier 
 Renaissance of the arts in Italy than in England, embroidery alone excepted; 
 this is explained by the fact that a powerful, unbroken tradition remained 
 in the English convents of the artistic needle-work learned from the Phry- 
 gians, so that the " opus phrygianum „ of the ancients was merged in the 
 celebrated and beautiful " opus anglicanum „. The coldness of the climate 
 tended to keep the women at home, and make them alive to the attractions 
 of a sedentary occupation which they could follow beside the hearth, and it 
 naturally caused them to prefer embroidery to lace ; airy open-work and 
 transparent fabrics were not suited to their cold, sunless, stonebuilt homes, 
 either for household or personal linen, until time and fashion introduced lux- 
 ury in the shape of collars, frills and cuffs as adornments to neck and 
 sleeves; these becoming objects being purely accessories of the toilet, the vo- 
 lume and not the quality of which could affect physical comfort. 
 
 The first examples of lace and pun to tagliato in England, such as the 
 shroud of St. Cuthbert who was buried in Durham Cathedral in the Twelfth 
 century, his vestments which are preserved in the library of the Chapter, 
 and the open work represented on monuments, all belong to ecclesiasiastics 
 and may have been brought from Italy as attributes of Church ritual in 
 exchange for the English embroideries so much prized by the Popes and 
 Cardinals in Rome. 
 
 We find however that in 1363, under Edward IV. gold and silk laces 
 trimmed the garments of the laity, for an edict which that monarch then pro- 
 mulgated, forbade their use. They were all imported from Italy, and Richard III, 
 at his coronation in 1438, wore a robe of crimson satin laced with two 
 bands of gold and silk passement which had been made in Venice on pur- 
 pose for that occasion. 
 
 The Queen of the Adriatic, owing to her commercial intercourse with 
 Byzantium and the Orient was, throughout the Middle Ages, the most luxu- 
 rious and refined city of Europe, and from a very early date in her existence 
 minute descriptions of costumes, with the prices paid for their component 
 parts were noted in documents carefully preserved in her State Archives. 
 Thus in 1219, we learn from an old account-book that tailors charged twice 
 as much for a border of needle work, called " fregio „ or " frixatura „ as 
 they did for one of fine fur, which indicates that the work must have been 
 elaborate. 
 
 Erequent allusions to various kinds of trimmings are found in the re- 
 gisters of the Venetian Customs offices of the Fourteenth Century, as well 
 as in the account books and records of law suits and wills belonging to 
 private families. In the earliest mosaics of the Basilica of St. Mark they are 
 also rudely represented on the garments of grotesque saints and mortals; they 
 are also reproduced, with minute faithfulness of detail in the gracefully execu- 
 ted miniatures which enrich the manuscripts of that period. 
 
LXXXIX. Screen. 
 
 71 
 
 N. ' LXXXIX. is taken from a manuscript of the Thirteenth Century 
 containing the statutes and byelaws of the guild of Bolognesc bakers; it re- 
 presents an angel presenting St. Mary Magdalen, who is kneeling in her her- 
 mitage, with a scarf or toga edged with a blue lace border and fringe. 
 
 CXI1I. Screen. 
 
 N.° CXIII. consists of four sketches taken from the illuminated headings, 
 dating from 1439-1455, of the " Rotuli „ or rolls of the University w hich 
 are preserved in the archives of Rologna. In them the bishop Petronius (her 
 patron saint and martyr), is represented in full canonicals with his right 
 hand raised^in the act of blessing the University, whilst in his left he holds 
 the walled city, recognizable in the exaggerated representations of the Towers 
 of Garisenda and the Asinelli. His mantle is edged with fur, and the deep 
 trimming on his glove and sleeve illustrates the lace of the period, Reticella, 
 which must have just come into fashion and have deeply impressed the 
 limner; for in the earlier and later Rotuli, though the execution of the 
 painting is more artistic and the designs are more beautiful and florcate, we 
 do not find the lace distinctly represented. These Rotuli are written on parch- 
 ment, superbly illuminated, and form an almost complete series from tT'-s 
 to 1799, besides a few scattered numbers of the Fourteenth Century. They 
 have never been published, although they constitute an exhaustive and une- 
 qualled illustration of miniature painting in Italy. These rolls contain the list 
 of those persons, for celebrated women as well as men figure among the 
 lecturers, who were called by the Rector, with the approbation of the civic 
 authorities, to read on or teach various subjects which, with the hours allotted 
 to each, are minutely detailed; two rolls were issued every year, one for 
 the " Jurists " and one for the " Artists. „ 
 
 In 1^47 people still called gowns tunics, and several for women and 
 children are described as " laboratum ad intavos, „ i. e. open or carved- 
 work, from which punto tagliato originated. 
 
 Others are mentioned as trimmed with an exaggerated quantity of gold, 
 silver, pearl or glass buttons and richly wrought button holes. 
 
 The sleeves were the most elaborate part of the costume and reached 
 to an enormous size, vying with the fashion of today ; they were loaded 
 with buttons and loops innumerabble, and profuselly trimmed with ^old and 
 beaded " Tressas „ or tressed work, which can have been no other than a 
 kind of gimp or passement. One tunic in particular is described as having 
 a " low-cut body „, the first, 1 find noted/and the usual rich sleeves; /iw'ns 
 or trailing skirts are also mentioned as forming part of the women's cos- 
 tumes of this period. 
 
7 2 
 
 Until the end of the Fourteenth Century these superfluous buttons, 
 jewelled borders and fur linings continued to be the fashion despite the con- 
 stant edicts published against their abuse, such as the one of 1299 limit- 
 ing the price of borders to 5 Lire di piccoli per ell; and it must have been 
 their costliness and uncomfortable weight, combined with the fear of prosecution 
 that caused gold, silver and clinquant (plated metal) passements, lace and 
 open work insertions to replace them. 
 
 The demand for every hind of trimming at this period was so great 
 that their manufacturers became rich and powerful, so that in 1343 they 
 separated from the association of weavers, of which until then they had formed 
 part, and organizing themselves in a separate guild, produced gold, silver, 
 linen and silk thread, cords, lacings, gimps, fringes, " doppioni " and all other 
 articles used as — or in the production of — trimmings. They received the 
 title of Masters " Bovdorum subtilum dc filo subtili" which denomination 
 must have been considered appropriate to lace-makers, for even after their 
 art became a great source of wealth and glory to Venice, this epithet, de- 
 nominating the guild of which it formed part, remained unchanged. 
 
 The repeated edicts published by patriarchal and protectionist go- 
 vernments, forbidding the importation and limiting the width and value of 
 trimmings forced mercers to invent some cheaper through effective edgings 
 with which to supply their customers; and they naturally resorted to flax, 
 aloes, and silk as first materials of comparatively small value with which to pro- 
 . duce pretty designs indrawn work, embroidered net and bobbin lace, which 
 being easy and rapid of execution coued be sold with profit fat a low price. 
 
 These edgings, " frizidor „, " smetii „ or " merli „ (so called from the 
 Byzantine terms mermis, bobbin, and mermiriso to turn) were a novelty and 
 pleasing to the eye; the customers, on their part, found that they furnished 
 the desired trimming for garments with the added charms of cheapness and 
 novelty, and so accepted them eagerly and they became the rage. But as 
 usual, once the fashion established, rivalry in elegance developed and the 
 original object was lost sight of; merchants and consumers alike ever incited 
 the workwomen to fresh inventions, more perfect designs and minute details, 
 until the beautiful thread points of the Golden Age of Lace became far 
 more costly and valuable than the jewelled borders which wrought such havoc 
 with the purses of the Fourteenth Century. 
 
 In the other provinces the same conditions existed; in 1341 the pa- 
 triarch Bertrando of Aquileja, sovereign of the Patria (Friuli) forbade the use 
 of gold embroidery, but permitted a trimming of cord or lace worth 40 francs 
 per ell, a price not to be surpassed under pain of fines and excommunica- 
 tion. The will of the Countess Pierina del la Torre, of Udine, dated 1396, 
 mentions a silk kerchief ornamented with " Merli „ worked in gold leaves, 
 These kerchiefs for head and neck furnished a field for the exhibition of 
 fine embroidery and lace. In a Venetian account book we find carefully re- 
 gistered under various dates from 1437 to 1439, a great number of these ar- 
 
73 
 
 tides of feminine adornment, which are perpetuated in the shawls, necker- 
 chiefs and Zendade or veils. 
 
 CCXXV1II. Cases. 
 
 (See N.° CCXXVIII. in tambour work of I846) still worn by the 
 Venetian patrician ladies on solemn occasions, and by the women of the 
 people daily. — The kerchiefs were made of coarse buralo linen, silk, muslin, 
 or the finest silk gauze brought from the Orient and unrivalled by the pro- 
 ducts of modern industry. Those of the Fifteenth Century arc described as 
 straforatto (literally excessively pierced) with work in wheel shapes, such 
 as we see in 
 
 CCCCVll Screen and CXXX1V. Cases. 
 
 N." CCCCVII. and other samples on the screen in N.° CXXXIV., worked 
 in " Cartiglia „ which belong to Countess Valentin is of Friuli. 
 
 CXXVI. Cases. 
 
 N.° CXXVI. is an heirloom in the historical Colleoni family. This 
 kerchief dates from about 1600, is made of the softest silk gauze, and is em- 
 broidered in the finest gold and silver thread with open work and relief round 
 the four sides; it was allotted the first prize assigned to this kind of work 
 at the historical Exhibition of Textile Arts held in Rome in the Spring 
 of I887. 
 
 CLXX XVIII. Cases. 
 
 N." CLXXXVIU. is evidently a neckerchief of sheer gauze dating 
 from the same period, and very daintily and artistically embroidered round 
 two sides with gold thread and gold foil, interspersed with conventional 
 flowers and fruits exquisitely shaded in coloured silks; owing to the daily 
 use to which such objects were destined specimens of them are very rare. 
 
 The above mentioned Venetian account book also describes kerchiefs 
 worked with chavi (openings) in coloured silks; this is a term used at that 
 period for a simple variety of pnnlo tagliato or Irapunto (drawn work). 
 
 LXXIII. Screen. 
 
 N.° LXXIII. is a fine specimen of this stitch, having a design consist- 
 ing of chimerical animals left in the linen, whilst the reticulated open work 
 ground is executed in red silk and edged with a narrow fringe worked in 
 the material. 
 
 lo 
 
74 
 
 CCCXXXV. Screen 
 
 has gold introduced in the ground and fringe 
 
 CCCXXXVIL Screen 
 
 is finely executed and dates from the Thirteenth Century ; it is a most 
 interesting sample of that curious work in human figures animals and flow- 
 ers left in linen, with an open-work ground, which was so much in vogue 
 at the time of the troubadours. 
 
 CCCL1. Screen. 
 
 Is purely gothic in design, and is a sample of the open work which 
 at that period was imported from the Island of Rhodes. 
 
 CCCLIII. Screen. 
 
 Is of the Fifteenth Century, and has a design of acorns and leaves 
 worked in red silk. 
 
 LXXIV., LXXVL Cases. 
 
 These numbers represent two beautiful pieces of trapunto worked in 
 chavi and equally finished on both sides; they belong to Mrs. Arthur Bronson. 
 N.° LXXIV. forms the border for a bed-spread worked in a Byzantine 
 design of mermaids, stags and dragons with little lions and small birds inter- 
 spersed among the principal figures to fill in the empty spaces. 
 
 These creatures are left in the linen with the features worked by over- 
 casting neatly in yellow silk, and the outlines are formed in the same way, 
 whilst the ground is embroidered in tiny work squares with the same silk; 
 the edge consists of a narrow silk fringe of the same colour wrought in the 
 material which characterizes this kind of work. 
 
 LXXVL Cases. 
 
 Is made in very fine linen, and must have served on a luxurious gown 
 or apron. The design is of the Renaissance, gracefully composed of large 
 interlaced conventional foliage and scrolls ; around this runs a beautiful 
 simple border; the overcast outline and shading are everywhere composed 
 of yellow silk, whilst the fine recticulated ground is made in pale blue silk, 
 the whole being edged with a narrow appropriate footing which was sub- 
 sequently added. 
 
75 
 
 CCCXX1V. Cases. 
 
 Is a pillow-case in fine white linen worked with thread in trapunto, 
 with an all over Gothic design. 
 
 CCCCLXXXVI. Cases. 
 
 Is an altar cloth or dresser scarf of the same kind of work, belonging 
 to Signora Costa, and contains birds, animals and letters forming initials, 
 monograms and words which stand ont from the Cavalo ground owing to 
 the superimposed embroidery and raised-work. 
 
 CCCCXC1I. Cases 
 
 belongs to the same proprietor, and is rarely fine in material and work. 
 
 DC VIII. Cases. 
 
 N.° DCVIII. comes from Ravenna; it is a table cloth in white linen, 
 Avorked in a Byzantine design and edged with very antique pointed pillow 
 lace of the Fourteenth Century. 
 
 DCIV. Cases. 
 
 N." DCIV. is a table-cover of the same material and work, but exe- 
 cuted at a later date as is seen from the broad, beautiful Genoese pillow- 
 lace, composed of great wheels in oriental design and artistically executed, 
 which is sewed on either end and indicates the beginning of the Sixteenth 
 Century. 
 
 In the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries the coloured embroideries 
 called punlo a crocetti as well as trapunto, were very much appreciated, 
 and in 1781, when rhe body of King Ferdinand the Second of Sicily was 
 dircovered in a perfect state of preservation in the Royal Sepulchres at Pa- 
 lermo, it was clothed in a shirt of the finest linden — which had been pre- 
 sented by the Saracens to king Otto IV in 1210 — worked upon the col- 
 lar and sleeves in arabesques and cufic inscriptions. 
 
 At present this work is again the fashion, and as examples are rare 
 they are eagerly sought after by merchants and collectors and command 
 high princes. The " Crocetta „ embroidery is executed on fine linen with 
 bright coloured silks in scachetti, square, back-chain, cross, and other 
 stitches so neatly executed that the finish of the wrong side is equal to that 
 of the right; the effect is generally enhanced by fringes wrought with the 
 needle into the edge of the border with the same tinted silks that compose 
 the design. 
 
76 
 
 LXXVJl, LXX1X., LXXXI. Screen. 
 
 N.° LXXVIL and LXXIX. are samples of this work, the latter is 
 particularly fine in design and dates from the Fifteenth Century ; its chief 
 interest lies in the well drawn and well executed human figures and ani- 
 mals of which it is composed, recalling the embroideries of the most artistic 
 period of the Roman Empire. 
 
 DCXXXIL, DCXXX1V., DCXXXVL, DCXXXVIII. Cases. 
 
 These numbers, represent 21 superb examples of this kind of Italian 
 embroidery, composing a rare collection brought together during years of 
 research by, D. 1 ' Silvestrini of Bologna who offers them for sale. Sup- 
 plemented by the trapunto and by embroideries from Achmim-Panapolis 
 exhibited on the screen, these numbers afford rare facilities for the study at 
 their source of the changes which, in the fifteenth century, gradually stole 
 over the art of designing for decorative work, and the successful struggle 
 to regain the congruities of composition. This kind of embroidery continued 
 the fashion until the Seventeenth Century, and was extensively used alike 
 on men's and women's linen as is seen in portraits of this period, such as 
 that of the historical Count Hippolito di Porto in the Museum at Vicenza, 
 and as is recorded in the court inventories and chronicles of Queen Eliza- 
 beth and her contemporaries. Another Venetian document, dated 1439, is 
 an inventory of the wardrobe belonging to Lorenzo Dona, whilom Governor 
 of Friuli, and it repeats the same endless enumeration of fine cloth, silk, 
 velvet and satin garments adorned with fur, gold lace, beads, metal, tinsel 
 and silk gimps and borders under the names of tarnato, fri\o d' oro, and 
 d'oro Vallen\ane (from Valencia in Spain) chamossa etc., whilst others 
 mention, oro di Cologna (from the city on the Rhine) limbus, grammata, 
 fimbria, tressas and endless other terms applied to the multitudinous trim- 
 mings of that day. 
 
 Other cities of Italy were not far behind Venice, for the constant in- 
 tercourse with the great commercial centre required by the exigences of 
 trade furnished them with an opportunity for studying the fashions. Count 
 Gandini has spent years in forming the superb historical collection of textiles 
 in the Museum of Modena which bears his name and which is unsurpassed by 
 any other in Europe; he has also patiently studied the masses of inedited 
 documents relative to the Ducal family of Este which reigned in Ferrara for so 
 many Centuries, and among the State Archives he has found mentioned in 
 a Register of the Wardrobe dated 1475 a. c. 25) a frixo in oro da Cologna 
 (frieze in Gold of Cologne) and in that of 1476, dated June 5 th (a. c. 87) 
 an order given for a felt hat alia Borgognona, trimmed with a silver and 
 silk gimp made with bobbins ; besides this (a. c. 96) in the same document 
 is noted a seat made in velvet for the great hall with the canopy trimmed 
 
77 
 
 at the sides with a fri\etto (frill) in gold and silver made in little squares 
 with bobbins; finally in number 112 of the same collection are inscribed the 
 orders for refurnishing an apartment in the palace, given by the Duchess 
 Eleonora, wife of Duke Hercules L who desired it should be embellished 
 in honour of the expected visit to Ferrara of her sister, Beatrice of Aragon, 
 on her journey to marry King Mathias Corvinus of Hungary ; in this ma- 
 nuscript one of the rooms is described as adorned mith B a frieze of gold 
 made with bobbins „. 
 
 In Florence in the Fifteenth Century the luxury in clothes was at least 
 equal to that of Venice, and Savonarola in the stirring sermons which he 
 preached from 1484 to 1491 against the follies and extravagances of the time 
 frequently reproached the nuns, especially those of the Convent of the Mu- 
 rate, with devoting their time to the vain fabrication of costly gold laces 
 with which to adorn the houses and persons of the rich, instead of conse- 
 crating, themselves to fasting, prayer and the glory of God in the embel- 
 lishment of His holy temples. 
 
 CCXC. Cases 
 
 consists of a large quantity of this lace in perfect preservation, exhibited 
 by Countess Agostini Venerosa della Seta, of Tuscany ; it comprises the 
 trimming for a table-cover and contains the widest and best designs in gold 
 lace I have ever seen. It comes from the fingers of those very women who 
 provoked the great preacher's vituperation, and its glowing splendour justifies 
 his words. 
 
 CCCLXXXIl Cases. 
 
 After gazing on these jewels of textile art the eye turns with contempt 
 from the seven samples which are placed beside it, as also from 
 
 LXXXJJl, CCCV. Screen 
 
 which illustrate the gold, silver and clinquant laces made in other parts of 
 Italy. 
 
 LXXXV. Screen. 
 
 N." LXXXV. is also Florentine of the same period as the gold lace, 
 and its ground is made with bobbins of unbleached thread worked in the 
 same way, but it has two real carfisane (strips of parchment rolled with 
 silk) interlaced with the ground in a conventional pattern to form the 
 design. This kind of lace was called guipure, from guiper (in old French 
 to roll) and its name later became synonimous with all lace made in a cord 
 like design. 
 
78 
 
 L XXXIX. Screen. 
 
 N.° LXXXIX. is an entirely different kind of work namely, of the 
 first kind of net used in Italy as lace on garments. It is made of a very fine 
 linen or silk mesh stiffened with wax and then embroidered in silk thread, 
 and was the origin of laxis. It was in use during the Fourteenth and early 
 part of the Fifteenth Century, as is indicated by the design and proved by 
 an account book formerly belonging to the Cathedral of Ferrara, and now 
 existing in the Municipal Archives of that city. 
 
 This documents contains an entry, made in 1469, of a bill presented by 
 a certain Battista, wife of Nicolo Andrea of Ferrara, for repairing the very 
 badly worn and damaged gramito (border) of fourteen surplices for the can- 
 ons of the chapter, with detailed specifications of the work, together with 
 the prices of thread and of the candles used for waxing it. 
 
 But the most complete and authentic list of the laces made in the Fif- 
 teenth Century is found in the lengthy document of which only the part 
 referring particularly to lace is given here. It consists in a descriptive cata- 
 logue of the personal effects and furniture inherited by, and divided between 
 the noble sisters Angela and Ippolita Sforza Visconti of* Milan, and is dated 
 September 12 th , 1403. To those who have read that lace was invented in 
 Flanders or in Germany in the latter part ot the Sixteenth Century, and 
 copied and developed in Italy during the Seventeenth, the following lines 
 prove how frequently assertions are made without proper research, and that 
 as early as the Fifteenth Century, side by side with the pillow lace made 
 with single threads, like that found in the graves of Achmim-Fanapolis, di- 
 stinguished under the name of bone-lace, and the more elaborate and newer 
 lace made with bobbins twirled in pairs and called as today " fuxi „, and 
 fuselli, all the varieties of needle lace specified in the pattern books pub- 
 lished in the following century existed, such as; pwUo tagliato, punto 
 lirato, rete a maglia quadra, Reticella pnnto in aria, etc. Although, as 
 will be seen from the Italian terms retained in translating this fragment, the 
 abominable orthography of the epoch often strangely travestied the original 
 term : 
 
 " One mantle of black satin trimmed round with gold tarnato (lace) „. 
 " One veil in spun gold „. 
 
 " Four small veils in silk; ten little veils in Neapolitan style „. 
 
 " One linen sheet of five breadths worked in point „. 
 
 " One piece of silver tarnato (lace) made in stars „. 
 
 " One sheet of four breadths worked in radexelo, (net lace). 
 
 " Four pieces of net lace point radexelo to put on a mosquito net „. 
 
 " One sheet worked with large insertions „. 
 
 " One gold veil made in the Neapolitan style with a gold cimossa 
 (edging) „ . 
 
 " One gold veil made with an applied cimossa of black silk. „ 
 
79 
 
 " One stomacher made in gold of grupi, (knotted work). „ 
 
 " One Tarneia (edging) of gold and silk made in ossi (bone lace). „ 
 
 " One stomacher of gold brocade, with vetini (net work). „ 
 
 " One stomacher of red satin trimmed with gold work a gugia. „ 
 
 " One sheet in raw silk of six breadths worked in Radexela, (netpoint) „ 
 
 " One small bundle of various kinds of embroideries. „ 
 
 " Fire pairs of sheets, one worked in radexela (net point) „ 
 
 " One sheet af four breadths in radexele. ., 
 
 " One painted box whith certain fittings of embroidery made on veils. „ 
 " Four pieces of redexela for a mosquito net. ,, 
 
 " One knotted embroidery on which were the pearls of my lady Bianca. „ 
 
 " One broad radixela for a sheet. „ 
 
 " Six new pieces of tiny raxela (net lace). „ 
 
 " Two tarnate of gold. „ 
 
 " One band worked a poncto de doii fuxi (literally in point ot two 
 bobbins, in contradistinction to the bone lace named above). 
 
 " Half of a bundle containing certain designs for the women to work.., 
 
 " One sheet of bombaxe with certain fine workings; one sheet ditto 
 worked in radicelle. „ 
 
 That lace made with " pairs „ of bobbins was a novelty is indicated 
 by its being especially thus described in order to distinguish it from the older 
 and simpler bone-lace, and we have an illustration of it in the unpublished 
 authentic portrait in oils of Christopher Columbus, belonging to Cavaliere de 
 Ferrari of Genoa, of which we give a sketch, and which is the only portrait 
 of the explorer in existence in which he is represented as wearing lace. 
 
 This quality of lace was made in Genoa and Spain, and is therefore 
 most appropriately perpetuated on the collar of the man whose greatness 
 brought lustre, wealth and power to the nation of his adoption, and added 
 a glorious name to the long list of brilliant sons possessed by the classic 
 land which gave him birth. But another historical character whom we must 
 ever honor in speaking of Columbus has tell an impress on this lace. It will 
 be remembered that when Queen Isabella of Castile joined her husband in the 
 Spanish crusade against the Moors of Grenada, she made a solemn vow not 
 to change her shift until that city had submitted to the Cross. — Many 
 weeks passed and that historical garment assumed a very doubtful unbleached 
 hue ere Granada fell. This Great Queen, despite the political cares and grave 
 state questions, which she never shirked, was a clever and devoted apostle 
 of the needle, and especially excelled in drawn work and lace in which she 
 also personally trained her daughters to work with the noble maidens under 
 her intelligent supervision in the vast hall, near their private apartments, 
 consecrated to the use of the ladies of the Court, so that they acquired, and 
 when they married into England, Portugal and Burgundy carried with them 
 the passion for the innocent and graceful Art which they had learned at 
 their mother's knees. 
 
80 
 
 All Christendom at that moment had its eyes fixed on Spain in admi- 
 ration af its enterprise and victories, and so the new colour was adopted for 
 laces and frills all over Europe in compliment to the Queen, yellow starches 
 were invented, and this shade of buff is still designated under the litle of 
 " couleur Isabel „ . This tint was especially given to the bobbin laces of 
 Spain and Genoa called "gothic,, whether made in silk or in thread, of which, 
 owing to their great fineness and antiquity, examples in a good state of pre- 
 servation are excessively rare. 
 
 DC XX I'M., DCXXX. Cases 
 
 in buff silk, belonging to D. 1 Silvestrini, are wonderfully fine and delicate in 
 quality and design, and come from Spain, probably worked there by the Jews 
 before they were expelled under the Inquisition. 
 
 CCCCXL., CCCCXL11. Cases 
 
 are two pieces, exquisite in design and execution, of bone lace made in 
 Genoa. They have an especial historical in terest for Americans as they 
 were brought to Perugia by a member of the Meniconi Bracceschi family 
 of which a distinguised condottiere of the Middle Ages, Bracciaforte da Mon- 
 tone, was a member. This nobleman being sent by the Pope as Ambassador 
 to the French court frequently passed through Genoa, and as the friends 
 and family of Columbus were poor and industrious it is possible that the 
 fingers which intertwined these linen and silk threads may have clasped the 
 hand of the great explorer; Such thoughts cause us to touch with reverence 
 these waifs of a bygone Age, and to realize the truth in the words of Fambri, 
 the great prophet of the fevival of lace-making in Italy, when he described 
 the gentle maids and matrons of the Renaissance as mouldered to dust beside 
 the heaps of ruins which once constituted the strongly fortified stone castles 
 they inhabited, whilst the filmy work of their frail fingers lives on through cen- 
 turies, ever freshly adorning generation after generation of the human race in 
 every part of the world to which culture has penetrated. 
 
 In the milanese document of 1493 the most frequently recurring qua- 
 lity of lace is reticella (net or Greek point), and the process followed in its 
 manufacture is described in onr Introduction. From a simple form of open 
 work embroidery it rapidly developed into a perfect point lace not to be 
 distinguished from " punto in aria „; it was a universal favourite side by 
 side with point and bobbin lace all through the sixteenth century, the coarser 
 qualities being especially adapted to body and house linen, and Burato is a 
 modification of it. Long before the publication of books of patterns every 
 household and convent had its sampler more or less complete, from which the 
 stitches and designs daily reproduced were copied by the women and girls. 
 
81 
 
 XCVIl, XClX. y CI. Screen. DXCVIIL Cases. 
 
 N.°* XCVIL, XCIX., CI., are some of these most antique samples ; 
 N.° DXCVIIL of the Sixteenth Century is exceptionally large, and forms a 
 complete illustration of the stitches used in this kind of lace. 
 
 Punto Tagliato lies between Trapunto and Reticella, and is simply the 
 latter with part of the linen ground left visible, just as Cardiglia touches 
 the other extreme, being made entirely whithout linen though appearing like 
 reticella. 
 
 We have innumerable examples of all these kinds of work, each more 
 beautiful than the other and all alike interesting, for the Italian women of 
 that period were quick to see its beauties and its advantages, as it did not 
 alter in the least in washing, and in the super-refined extravagance of the 
 Renaissance it was used to adorn sheets, pillow cases, towels and table lin- 
 en, bed spreads, curtains and canopies with insertions and borders; and the 
 passion for it went to such lengths as as to cause the bright coloured walls 
 of the summer apartments to be entirely covered with it, which a chronicler 
 of the period says produced a charming effect. The Sforza document speaks 
 of sheets of four and five breadths; this was because the old looms did not 
 admit of weaving linen wide enough to make them all in one piece, and as 
 seams are unsightly, pretty insertions were used to unite the widths; and this 
 tradition remains in Italy. 
 
 DCLVI. Cases. 
 
 And in N.° DCLVI. is exhibited a homespun sheet, such as is still in daily 
 use among the Friuli peasants and which illustrates these observations. The 
 simple fact that I was forced to lend a sheet to take its place during its voyage to 
 America shows that such work is considered not luxurious but simply neat. 
 
 CCCCLXXXIV. Cases. 
 
 N.° CCCCLXXXIV. is the heading of a sheet from an old castle in 
 the neighbourhood, and other pieces exhibited in this group have served the 
 same purpose; to match these sheets pillow cases with reticella or bobbin 
 lace borders and openwork hems were of course necessary. 
 
 CXLII , CXXX., CXXXVIII, CCCCLXXl'III, DCLVI 1 1.. 
 DXCII. Cases. 
 
 N." CXLII. belongs to one of our peasants, and numbers CXXX , 
 CXXXVIII., CCCCLXXVIII, DCLVIII, are all pillow cases in the same kind 
 of work, executed at different epochs more or less finely according to the 
 ability or wealth ot the housewife, and shaped to fit, for centuries, the heads 
 of successive generations of humanity from the cradle to the grave. 
 
 1 1 
 
82 
 
 CCLXXXVL, CCLXXXVIII. Cases. 
 
 Form the cover and curtains a dressing table composed entirely of beau- 
 tifully worked reticella paralellograms which adorned a Tuscan bridal sheet 
 of the Fifteenth Century, they are edged with fine antique Genoese pillow lace. 
 
 CCCXXXIV.. CCCCXLVIIL, DCIL, DC VIII. . DCX. DCXII. Cases. 
 
 Belong to several beautifully executed table coths, dresser covers and 
 towels, all forming interesting examples of reticella and punto tagliato ; each 
 is different from the others and some are adorned with pillow-lace edges and 
 fascinatingly complicated little tassels at the four corners. 
 
 CCCCLVL, CCCCLXIL, DIL, DIV. Cases. 
 
 Are also examples of Reticella and punto tagliato which have served 
 on household and church linen, and are exhibited by the patronesses. 
 
 CCCCLXVIII. Cases. 
 
 N.° CCCCLXVIII. is particularly worthy of attention on account of its~ 
 fineness of quality, perfection of execution and the curious little doge's caps 
 and vases introduced in the design. 
 
 DC I. Cases. 
 
 N.° DCI. is also interesting as showing an entirely contrary treatment of 
 the material, and constitutes Punto tagliato Reale, the designs being cut out and 
 diversified with graceful stitches, and the ground left in plain linen as at the school 
 in Burano, where the clever workers have recovered the secret of its fabrication. 
 
 LXXXIX, CIX, CLXXL, CCLXXXIIL-CCCLX1X., CCCLXXXIX., 
 CCCXCI, CCCXCIX., CCCCL, CCCCIIL, ccccv., 
 CCCC VII , CCCCIX. , CCCCX1. , CCCCXIII.,CCCCX VII.,CCCCXIX. Screen . 
 
 Consist in eighteen samples of Punto Tagliato and Reticella exhibited on 
 the screen, and as each one is furnished with the date of its origin and name 
 of place of manufacture no further comment is necessary; N.° LXXXIX. is 
 of purely gothic design and is the oldest piece of drawn work on this list. 
 
 CCCXCV1I. Screen. 
 
 N.° CCCXCVII. is a fine example of the variety of lace called cardiglia, 
 which in appearance resembles Reticella but is worked as is Venetian point. 
 
 These varieties of work are so beautiful, so characteristic and so little 
 known out of Italy that they have been chosen to form the subject of the 
 
83 
 
 illustration representing the fashion of using lace from 1500 to 1600. This 
 sketch reproduces an anonymous portrait, preserved in the pinacotek of Bo- 
 logna, of a delicious, jolly baby of the olden time, literally smothered in laces, 
 lyging wide awake in a monumental crib furnished with pillow, spread, ca- 
 nopy and curtains of this work, and with even the corner columns swathed 
 in bands of it; these latter were also used alone or mixed with pillow lace 
 for swaddling the babies of the Italian Aristocracy and of wealthy Hebrews. 
 
 The latter, howeverer, in accordance with the prescriptions of the Tal- 
 mud, were wrapped in bands diversified by quotations from the Law em- 
 broidered between the stripes of lace. 
 
 CCCXX. Cases. 
 
 N.° CCCXX. is one of these, worked in Burato and worn to rags by 
 several generations of Jewish babies, while. 
 
 ///. Screen. 
 
 N.° III. on the screen, and N. os 
 
 CCCXIV., CCCXVIIL, CCCXX. Cases. 
 
 Have undergone the same process in the service of a multitude of little 
 Christians. 
 
 DLIV, DIM. Cases. 
 
 N. os DLIV., DLVI. are two unusually long and richly worked bands of 
 Punto Tagliato and Reticella from Bologna in a state of perfect preservation. 
 They are edged with delicate, pointed Genoese lace, and cause us to regret 
 that more of this artistic combination has not survived the ravages of Time. 
 
 These two pieces exactly correspond in length, width and design with 
 those on the canopy produced in the sketch, and may have served on this very 
 crib or on that of some other little Bolognese aristocrat of the same epoch. 
 
 The list of laces in use during the Fifteenth Century remains to be 
 completed; we have reviewed the pretty ladies of the Court, but have left 
 unmentioned the queen and greatest beauty of them all; she enters last 
 and all eyes turn to her as she ascends the throne of needle work from 
 which no changes of fashion have been able to banish her: 
 
 DCV. Wall 
 
 We are here stand in the presence of the earliest real Venetian 
 point, Punto Jn aria. 
 
 Since first invented this lace has ever enhanced woman's charms, and 
 men have been so attracted by its clinging grace that they have carried 
 
84 
 
 it upon their breasts and sleeves in court and camp, and sometimes dyed it 
 it crimson with their life blood, whilst inordinate love for it has played 
 such sad havoc with family coffers that estates have been mortgaged, and 
 whole families reduced to penury in order to satisfy the craving for its posses- 
 sion; many laws have therefore been promulgated against it but all in vain. 
 
 From its origin it was very expensive, and the Venetian Republic tried 
 to eliminate a fresh excuse for extravagance by suppressing it at the outset, 
 and so in 1476 the Senate decreed that no Pun to in Aria whatever, executed 
 either in flax or in silver or gold thread should be used on the curtains 
 and bed-linen in the city or provinces; but the women were accustomed to 
 disobey the laws, and if necessary to rebel against which were measures 
 inspired by a desire to control their expenditure, thongh it were for their 
 own good. They had tasted the sweets of victory in their great rebellion 
 against the patriarch of Venice, Lorenzo Giustiniani, who had, in 1437, dared 
 to forbid females, under pain of fines and excommunication, the use of costly 
 jewelry and of every kind of superfluous adornment. 
 
 But the women of that period, like the artisans of to-day, bravely 
 " went on strike „ , refused to attend the churches, and appealed to the 
 Pope. Their Ambassadress must have possessed not only rich and becoming 
 garments, but also an eloquent tongue and a persuasive smile, since she in- 
 duced the Pontiff to side with the women and to order the Patriarch to 
 cancel his injunction. 
 
 And when we observe N.° DCV, belonging to Signorina Angiolini of 
 Bologna, which is a lramed example of this most antique Venetian Point, of 
 about 1460, resembling in its design some pure spirit flower, we can under- 
 stand the women, excited over these exquisite blossoms of their inventive 
 needles, refusing to have the rare exotics destroyed by ruthless laws, and 
 battling fearlessly to preserve these creatures of their mind and hand for 
 their own particular adornment; they had grasped the possibilities of effect 
 which it possessed, and had realized that the twining of its graceful tendrils 
 in and out around the hems of their veils and coifs added a needed dedicacy 
 to their superb costumes, and that its lily blossoms brightened by contrast 
 the shellike tinting of their hands and necks and the rosy freshness of their 
 cheeks. 
 
Pffip IV. 
 
 Che (Bolton ^gc of £iuc. 
 
 From 1500 to the French Empire. 
 
 The love of lace developed into a passion during the Sixteenth Cen- 
 tury when all that was beautiful found crowds of faithful worshippers. The 
 first Artistic talent of Europe was inspired to compose designs for the com- 
 plicated weaving with needle and bobbins: designs which were pubblished 
 in book form and passed through numerous editions. Tradition has it that 
 no less a painter than the great Titian in person not only counselled 
 his nephew Veccelio in the composition of his pattern book, but himself 
 sometimes laid aside the brush and deigned to draw designs for a favoured 
 few. Reprints of the most celebrated of these pattern books published 
 during the Sixteenth Century are exhibited in the collection of books, and 
 the dedication of one of the rarest extant, addressed to the princess Mar- 
 gherita d'Este, Duchess of Ferrara, in 1592, is reproduced at the beginning 
 of this volunne, for as seen from the aboe they were offered in homage 
 to the highest ladies of the land who gladly accepted the dedication, consi- 
 dering it a great honor and compliment to the industry and skill of their 
 households. For round them were gathered the daughters of many noble 
 families entrusted to their care for instruction in the arts becoming high 
 born woman hood; thus each great honse formed a kind of training school 
 in literature and manners a custom that was replaced by the convents of 
 the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries and the select boarding schools 
 of to-day. In the great hall on the second floor devoted to the women and 
 their occupations the mistress of the palace caused the young girls to execute 
 the wondrous works of skill and patience copied from these pattern books, 
 in which were often introduced, for the easier execution of the design, 
 samples of the different lace stitches, as in the unique example 
 
 DCXIV. Cases. 
 
 N." DCXIV. by Vecellio, which belonged for generations to the pious 
 ladies who occupied a picturesque old convent in Perugia now suppressed. 
 There was a healthy spirit of emulation among the maides of a household, 
 
86 
 
 each girl putting her whole soul and ability into the work alloted to her, 
 for not only was she striving for a word of encomium more flat tering 
 than that given to her companions, but all the women of one palace 
 united in straining every nerve to have their work surpass that of some 
 other great household equally celebrated for its points. This rivalry among 
 the women went to such exaggerated lengths as to give rise to insults 
 and bitter quarrels among the men. Princesses and Queens complied with 
 the industrious usage of the times, and Catherine de Medici carried this Ita- 
 lian custom into France in the Sixteenth Century just as the constant in- 
 tercourse between Italy and Spain during the Fifteenth Century had introduced 
 it into Spain. This remarkable Italian woman — who had inherited the tal- 
 ent of her father Lorenzo de Medici — while directing the affairs of state 
 found time each day to spend several hours with tha young princesses and 
 ladies of the Court in the sunny work room of the Louvre, looking out 
 upon the river Seine. There her danghter Margaret, the pretty, clever, giddy 
 wife of Henry of Navarre, spent the most innocent hours of her life embroi- 
 dering the squares of Reticella and net which are called after her pseudo- 
 nym of Reine Margot- 
 
 CCCX. Cases., CCCXV. Screen. 
 
 N." CCCX. and CCCXV, (of this work copies in the form of tea cloths 
 are exhibited by the school of Brazza in the modern section). 
 
 Here her daugter-in-law, the beautiful Mary Stuart acquired love of 
 sunshine, gaiety and laughter while defty plying the needle, and when in her 
 emprisonment she worked the veil (still religiously preserved) which framed 
 her pale features on the scaffold, how sadly must the sweet memories of 
 her happy youth and gay companions in France have entangled themselves 
 among its threads. 
 
 The mother of Henry the IV. of France and Navarre, Jeanne d'Al- 
 bret, at her father's great castle in Gascony had also learned to apply 
 herself to the needle, and when she married Antoine de Bourbon in 1556 
 she gathered about her the noble ladies of Navarre, and in the following 
 years of strife she whiled amay the many anxious hours caused by the per- 
 secution of her coreligionists in making, with the assistance of her compa- 
 nions, yards upon yards of superb embroidered net, part of which consti- 
 tutes the bed cover, curtain, and dressing table valance all edged with dainty 
 Gothic pillow lace exhibited under 
 
 CLXVIIL, CLXX. Cases. 
 
 N os CLXVIIL and CLXX. Net lace or Lacis being easy to work and 
 not requiring great application, was a favorite faney work among high born 
 lace makers, as is seen from the royal account books. 
 
K7 
 
 CL. Cases. 
 
 N.° CL. is a beautiful piece of the earliest variety, made on the bias; 
 it is from Genoa, the property of Countess Gambaro, and is edged with very 
 fine Genoese lace in deep points. 
 
 DCLXII. Cases. 
 
 N.° DCLXII. is still older; it is a pillow case composed of squares of 
 bias lacis illustrative of stories in Holy Scripture and of the virtues and vices; 
 it ha* illegible lettering forming a border to each square, and the human fi- 
 gures are clothed in the costume of the Renaissance. 
 
 XC1V. Cases. 
 
 N.° XCIV. is a towel or credence cover, with either end formed by 
 a very deep border of net, embroidered with unicorns drinking at a foun- 
 tain ; 
 
 DC XXI II. Cases. 
 
 N.°DCXXIII. is also the end of a dresser cover and repeats the same 
 design of unicorns, although in this they are represented as suppporting the 
 arms of the proprietor. In the Sixteenth Century the unicorns was a favourite 
 design with which to ornament all objects used in connection with food, such 
 as as platers, cups table linen and the like, because of the prevalence of the 
 crime of poisoning at that period, and the belief that the horn of the uni- 
 corn destroyed all venom ; so, that though this fabulous animal never existed, 
 a regular traffic was carried on in manufactured horns by the apothecaries, 
 and the Neapolitan use of small carved horns to conjure the evil eye is a 
 survival of the superstition. It originated in the legend of a poisonous lake 
 which killed all animals that drank of its waters ar well as birds that flew 
 accros it, until, a unicorn came there to quench his thirst, and at the touch 
 of his horn it was purified ; verses allusive to this were frequently inscribed 
 upon cups and there are many pattern books of the Sixteenth Century in 
 the designs ot which the unicorn is introduced. XCIV. is copied from one 
 of these, and is executed with great attention to correct drawing. These 
 pieces, like all net lace of the same variety from Italy, are made in a straight 
 band and edged with a " campane „ of bobbin lace; the Germans however 
 finished their oldest net laces with teeth edged with overcasting or with 
 button-hole stitch, asin. 
 
88 
 
 DCXXV. Cases. 
 
 N.° DCXXV. embroidered in the imperial castles, because bobbin lace 
 was not manufactured among them until later than net lace; little tassels 
 were sometimes added in both countries to the turretted borders. 
 
 CCCCXVI, Cases 
 
 is like CCCCXVI , which is a piece of Italian pointed net af the same period. 
 CCXXIV. Cases 
 
 is a border formed of a very fine quality of Isabelle coloured net, most ar- 
 tistically embroidered in interlaced vines among which cupids and clogs are 
 portrayed as playing, it is edged with a fine campane and the composition is 
 in the perfect Italian art of the Sixteenth Century; this exquisite piece of 
 lace belongs to the Santa Lilia family which came to Naples from Spain 
 with Charles III. 
 
 DC IX. Cases. 
 
 DCIX. is af the same period, made in silk, and effective because of 
 its brilliant colours; it is very coarse and was evidently made to be used on 
 furniture. 
 
 Another variety of net lace is called Modena; it is not generally em- 
 broidered but the pattern consists in knitting the meshes together in diffe- 
 rent shapes. 
 
 DC VII. Cases. 
 
 DCVII. is an interesting example af this work, as in it the squares of 
 embroidered net and Modena are alternated while the border is entirely com- 
 posed of Modena. This lace has always been identified with Tuscany, and 
 the peasants of today in the mountains round Florence use bed spreads and 
 mosquito nets made of it. 
 
 DC. Cases. 
 
 Is a curious cover composed of squares of old Burato work alternated 
 with squares of Modena executed in cream and buff coloured thread of aloes. 
 This was formed in a sepulchre at Ferrara belonging to the marquises of 
 Caliagnini and is of the Fifteenth Century though it is mentioned here be- 
 cause placed with the other work in net. 
 
89 
 
 CVIl Screen. 
 
 A curious needle lace, of which I ignore the name, was made for a 
 short time during the Sixteenth Century and must have been invented in 
 Spain, as its stitch resembles more closely that composing the Hispano- 
 Moresque head dress than any other lace; it looks something like knitting 
 or finest net, but contains no knots, and is worked without a foundation com- 
 posed of a material as is Venetian point, but differs from this in having no 
 threads sewed down to form the outline of the design 
 
 DXCVI. Cases. 
 
 is a small table cover the border of which consists of this lace executed in a 
 design of alternate peacocks, emblems of jealous vigilance, and doves, emblems 
 of gentle faith. Another lace which never had great success in Italy, but was 
 very much admired in Spain and also in France was the heavy silk Guipure 
 of the Sixteenth Century. This was made either in bobbin lace of silk in 
 various colours or mixed with metal, and was also made with the needle. 
 Its characteristic consists in a narrow strip of vellum which, on account of 
 its brittleness, was soon replaced by a coarse cord, wound smoothly in silk, 
 or whatever other thread was to be used, and edged with tiny loops; this 
 was fastened down round pieces of silk brocade or tinsel, see 
 
 CCCXL., CCCXU1I. Screen. 
 
 or close lace stitches forming 
 
 LXXV. Screen. 
 
 Mowers, LXXV. or else caused to curve about alone, forming stems and ara- 
 besques held together by loops. These were sewed borders on heavy mate- 
 rials such as velvets, cloths, and brocades, but the Italians preferred to use 
 embroidery where the lighter varieties of gold and metal laces and the delicate 
 silk polychrome lace edgings were not appropriate. Their fondness for co- 
 lour and appreciation of its value was greatly developed, as is evinced by the 
 beautiful piece 
 
 LXXX. Cases. 
 
 of conventional design executed in pillow lace, N.° LXXX., which is unri- 
 valled by the most scientific combination of today, Burato and reticella were 
 also executed at this period in coloured silks mixed with thread, and added 
 diversity of effect to the house linen. 
 
 12 
 
90 
 
 LXXXIV. Cases. 
 
 is a table cover of burato worked in colours: it is varied with net and pil- 
 low lace, and edged with fringed pillow lace. 
 
 CCCXXV1I1. Cases. 
 
 Is a band of the same work adapted as a bell-pull. 
 
 LXXXII. Cases. 
 
 Is a broad band of Cartiglia made of white thread and yellow silk in a Moor- 
 ish design of discs; it comes from Spain. 
 
 CCCXXXII. Cases. 
 
 In CCCXXXII. a similar effoct is produced by a fancy work which has of late 
 become the fashion in Italy, and which consists in sewing remnants of an- 
 tique white pillow lace guipure upon canvass, and filling in all the space be- 
 tween the designs with Sicilian stitch executed in coloured silks. 
 
 The great connection betwen Spain and Italy began with the marriage 
 of Ferdinand and Isabella, and continued until the middle of the Sixteenth 
 Century when Spainish families had obtained dominion over the greater 
 part of Italy, and the Italian nuns imported into Spanish convents and the 
 Spanish girls educated in Italian convents exchanged with their new compa- 
 nions the knowledge of the arts of the needle as practiced in their respect- 
 ive countries. With France continued intercourse began with the Peace of 
 Bologna in 1530, although from the beginning of the Sixteenth Century 
 Italy, full af beauty and art, had become the coveted prey of all Europe, and 
 on its historic soil were fought out the battles for supremacy between France 
 and Spain, which in those days meant also Austria. The nobles and princes 
 who commanded the invading armies on both sides carried back with them 
 the artistic spoils of its civilization, and all the laces and embroideries exe- 
 cuted until the seventeenth Century are copies or modifications of Italian 
 designs. Florence, Genoa and above all Venice as the most flourishing cities 
 originated the fashions till the brilliant and extravagant Court af Louis XIV 
 definitely established the sway of Paris as their absolute dictatress. Notwith- 
 standing the opening of the Universities to women, which began in the Fif- 
 teenth century with the establishment of a mixed College at Mantua un- 
 der the direction of Vittoria da Feltre, the Italians did not become that qual- 
 ity of literary women which neglects the feminine arts. At Venice, as early 
 as 1414, Giovanna Dandolo, wife of Doge Pasqual Malipiero, whose intelligence 
 enjoyed such renown that the first book printed in Venice was dedicated to her, 
 founded and protected large schools in which the productions of the bobbins 
 
91 
 
 and the needle reached such perfection that they founded the supremacy of 
 Venetian laces, and assured for the future their great reputation in all the 
 courts of Europe. 
 
 The schools and ateliers opened by this benevolent women continued 
 to spread the art after her death. The needle laces produced at this period 
 in Venice as well as in Spain are generally known under the name of Spanish 
 point, to distinguish them from the more elaborate designs executed in the 
 same lace of a later period. 
 
 DCLIX. Cases. 
 
 N.° DCLIX. is very antique and is edged with deep Spanish point; it 
 represents the transition from reticella to Punto in Aria, destined for church 
 uses and illustrating in fine stitches the Pasqual Lamb, emblems of the Pas- 
 sion, the gates of Heaven, angels, birds, etc. This has been reproduced at the 
 school of Burano. 
 
 DXV., DXI1 Wall. 
 
 are photographs of some curious and antique pieces of this quality of lace 
 consisting of elaborate and complicated figures composing entire Biblical or 
 mythological stories. 
 
 CCCVIII. Cases. 
 
 is very old and represents tiny figures of women ; it comes from a convent at 
 Udine. 
 
 DXCIV. Cases. 
 is a band of „ Punto in Aria „ from an old family of Mantua. 
 
 DC VI. Cases. 
 
 is a table-cover composed of deep artistic reticella inserted in fine linen and 
 
 edged with bobbin lace. I 
 
 CCLXXX1IL, CCLXXXV. Screen. 
 
 N.° CCLXXXIII. is a piece of the same lace placed on the screen 
 beside CCLXXXV., which is a modern imitation of it made in Switzerland 
 by machinery, and has been very much the fashion for dress trimming during 
 the past two years, but can compare in no way with the original. 
 
S>2 
 
 CCCCLVIIL, CCCCLX. Cases. 
 
 Are beautiful examples of Cartiglia of the Sixteenth Century. 
 
 CCCCLVL, CCXLVIIl, CCCXII. Cases. 
 
 CCCCLVI. is Punto in Aria of the same epoch, as are also N. os CCXLVIIL 
 and CCCXII; the latter consisting of an artistically designed deep lac'e, com- 
 posed of different si^ed conventional thistles, executed in Spain 
 
 DCXVI. Cases. 
 
 is another band of Punto di Spagna. 
 
 CXXVI. Cases. 
 
 is of interest as illustrating a special variety of Venetian Guipure made in 
 linen thread during the Sixteenth Century; it is executed partly in needle and 
 partly in bobbin lace; 
 
 CCXVL Screen. 
 N.° CCXVI. is a second example of the above. 
 
 CXIV. Cases. 
 
 An example of the artistic embroidery most admired in Venice during the 
 Sixteenth Century is furnished by the table cover composed of deep red an- 
 tique satin and velvet, richly embroidered in gold tendrils entwined with 
 scattered flowers of delicately tinted silks worked with the exquisite shad- 
 ing and excessive fineness of execution called needle. In 1557 another Duchess, 
 Zilia Dandolo, wife of Doge Lorenzo Priuli, who like the gifted Dogaressa 
 Malipiero occupied herself in benefitting humanity, merited by her noble 
 character and charitable deeds the honour of being personally crowned, a 
 distinction which was not accorded to the wives of all the Doges. The cos- 
 tume she wore on this occasion is described as having been copied from 
 that of one of her predecessors. Her head dress consisted of a cap of gold 
 bordered with deep Venetian point from which a white veil trimmed with 
 point lace hung to the ground; and the same chronicler relates that the 
 great ladies, and the high officials' wives who attended the ceremony wore 
 the immense collars of point lace, spangled with gold, jewels and pearls, which 
 are seen in the portraits of the Medici family; these were supported by fine 
 metal bars called verghetti which were manufacture in such abundance on 
 account of the great demand for Venetian lace caps, collars and ruffs, that 
 
93 
 
 the inabitants of a whole quarter of the town were occupied in their pro- 
 duction, and their name, which it still bears, was given to it in consequence. 
 Others of the ladies wore lace caps and bavari or bibs for which so many 
 designs were published during the following fifty years; others wore long 
 veils edged with deep bands of Punto Tagliato a fiorami : the superb Ve- 
 netian raised, or literally, sculptured point. 
 
 CCXL1V. Cases. 
 
 is an example of this lace in the pure design which first characterized 
 CLXVII. Cases. 
 
 it, and CLXVI. shows the splendour to which it developed in the Seven- 
 teenth Century, this rich and rare cape, belonging to the Countess TelfTner, 
 was evidently destined to adorn the red mantle of one of the ambassadors 
 sent out by the Doge and Senate with special orders to dress in superb 
 style, so as to prove to all who saw them how rich and grand was the 
 proud Republic they represented. 
 
 CCXCV11. Screen. 
 
 is a cuff made in Venetian Punto in Aria representing animals (hares); it has 
 the raised edge in use at the middle of the Sixteenth Century, 
 
 DC XL, DC XII I. Cases. 
 
 as has also N.° DCXI., belonging to M. w Cuthbert Slocomb, which is finished 
 in deep points and composed of a running design With which the dogs of 
 the Cararrese, peacocks, scorpions and eagles are intermingled. This is an 
 example of the Carnival lace especially manufactured for grand occasions such 
 as marriages, births etc. and which always contained the emblems of the 
 great families in whose honour the celebration was to take place. To this 
 flounce belong 16 oval pats such as were used in slashed sleeves; these to- 
 gether form a worthy relic of old Venetian costume which receives added 
 interest from 
 
 CLXX1V. Cases, 
 
 a piece of fine Frigio bobbin lace, exhibited by Countess Papafava dei Carra- 
 resi, for this contains also the dogs belonging to the great family of Car- 
 rara, and the quartering of peacocks used at that epoch, but this time 
 combined with lions and foxes, so that the two pieces record different mar- 
 riages in the same house, one in the Sixteenth and the other in the Seven- 
 teenth Century. 
 
94 
 
 CLV. Screen. 
 
 is another interesting example of emblematic lace, consisting of deep Gen- 
 oese points which must have formed the edge of some ruff or standing 
 collar, and represents the double headed crowned eagle of Austria and the 
 shield with the white cross of the arms of Savoy. 
 
 The Italian bobbin laces also made rapid progress during the Sixteenth 
 Century. First of all among them continued to rank the delicate conventional 
 gothic laces which were modified into ever varied and new patterns, 
 
 DCXX. Cases. 
 
 following, however, two systems of design, the one being round and wheel- 
 like, such as the Maltese and Moorish laces, see DCXX; the other pointed 
 like pine trees or the Oriental date palm leaf pattern which frequently com- 
 posed the entire design of these latter laces. 
 
 DLXX. Cases. 
 
 N.° DLXX. is a beautiful creation, and 
 
 CCLXXXII. Cases. 
 
 is very gracefully composed in the form of a collar edged with needle lace 
 reticella. 
 
 DLXXIV. Cases. 
 belongs to the same epoch, as do also 
 
 C1IL, CLXI., CLXXXV. Screen. 
 with deep points, and many other examples on the screen. 
 
 CXIX. Screen. 
 
 is the end of a towel with palm leaf insertion and a turretted border. 
 
 CXXI. and CXXXV. Screen. 
 have a graceful running design executed in the same lace. 
 
 CXL. Cases. 
 
 is a pillow-case with a deep insertion of this lace, forming beautiful, conven- 
 tional flowers and leaves alternated with the same design which begins on 
 
95 
 
 the opposite side, and fits into the space left between the repititions of the 
 group of flowers; it is edged with a narrow insertion which repeats the 
 same flowers and leaves in a different combination. 
 
 CLXV. Screen. 
 
 and several other samples of this variety of lace, Punto Tagliato, reticella and 
 Cardiglia, which are here all marked with the place of origin and date of 
 manufacture, were imitated with bobbins, producing a similitude of effect 
 and wearing equally well on linen, whereas the fatigue and cost of production 
 were vastly inferior. 
 
 CCCCLXVL Cases. 
 
 is an example of this lace, as are 
 
 CCCLXXL, CXXIX., CXXXV., CCCLXXXJ. Screen. 
 
 and many other pieces exhibited on the screen or introduced in the household 
 linen. 
 
 CCXXXI. Screen. 
 
 is a simple insertion made in enormous quantities and used in sheets, pillow 
 cases and coarse underwear; it was infinitelly varied in design, and coarse 
 effective borders were produced to match it, of which 
 
 CXLV., CXXX11L, CXXXV1L, CI. XIX., CL XXV. Screen. 
 
 and many others, such as 
 
 DCXLVIIL, DCL. Cases. 
 
 are examples. These were made in every part of Italy from the Alps to the 
 extreme point of Sicily, In Genoa the design of this quality of lace, as well 
 as of the others already mentioned was influenced by Spain; as seen in 
 the guipure DCXIII. and the table-cover DCXL., 
 
 DCXI1L, DCXL. Cases. 
 
 but it also learned an entirely different stitch from Malta, 
 
 CCCXIX., CCCXXXV., CLXV1L, CCI. Screen. 
 
 as is seen in the examples CLXVIl, the insertion CCI., CCCXIX. and in 
 CCCLV. which has a decidedly Moorish effect. 
 
9 6 
 
 From the Moors the Genoese and Venetian mariners of the XVI Cen- 
 tury also acquired another kind of artistic trimming to which they gave the 
 name of Punto a Groppo (knotted point) now called by its Moorish name 
 of Macrame. This complicated fringe, composed of fine knotted threads, is 
 equal to a lace in design and execution, and when treated with long threads 
 wound about bobbins it becomes one. 
 
 CC. Cases. 
 
 Signora Enrichetta Ruggi of Padua has composed the entire group, CC. 
 illustrating the evolution of this kind of work from the simple knotted fringe 
 to the most complicated lace, and Countess Avogadro of the same city con- 
 tributes a rich and interesting Album 
 
 CXCIV. Cases. 
 
 of antique laces containing, at N.° 20, an authentic bit of the original groppo, 
 which is very rare. 
 
 This lace is made extensively around Genoa, and is used to edge house 
 and table linen, as are also the fringed, coarser guipure and torchon laces 
 copied from those of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries as already 
 mentioned, and of which N. os 
 
 CCCLXXIIL, CXXXIX., CXCIII. Screen 
 
 are w original samples. 
 
 In Venice also, and in Sicily and Naples, as in the countries and is- 
 lands of the Eastern part of the Mediterranean, the bobbin laces were affected 
 by trade with the East, and developed designs resembling those for embroi- 
 dering or braiding, 
 
 CCCXXV. Screen. 
 
 The following are a few as examples of these; CCCXXV. and other 
 samples on the screen, as well as 
 
 CCCCXC, CCCV1II. Cases 
 
 show the character of Greek lace with one or two coarse threads passing 
 along the ribbon design which is identical with modern Russian and Hunga- 
 rian Guipure; 
 
 CLXXXVI. Cases 
 
 is the same kind of design but different in treatment, having a mesh ground 
 and thick cord following its arabesques, in the middle of which large holes 
 
97 
 
 are left to vary the heavy effect, and here is found the original idea which 
 developed into Neapolitan and Milanese point. 
 
 CCCXXL, CCCXXIII. Screen. 
 
 CCCXXI. is a sample of white, and CCCXXIII. of yellow close guipure 
 which, as well as CL are from Corfu. N.° CCCXXIII, however is composed 
 of the renowned fibre of aloes produced on that island. 
 
 The laces from Cyprus and the Southern Islands of the Mediterranean, 
 as well as those in Madeira, although oriental in design, see 
 
 CCLXVIIL, DVIIL, CCCXVL Cases, 
 
 resemble the cloister laces of the Eighteenth Century which, though fine in 
 effect, were not very difficult to execute and so were taught by the Nuns 
 wherever they founded schools, see 
 
 CVI. Cases. 
 
 and others. 
 
 The oriental and Greek designs rapidly developed in the artistic atmo- 
 sphere of the Renaissance into very beautiful and costly laces, the workwomen 
 adapting their advantages while suppressing their defects, and these simple 
 laces therefore soon developed into the highly prized points of Genoa, 
 Naples and Milan, and into the beautiful guipures of Ragusa and Venice which 
 have always retained an oriental character in their flowers and arabesques. 
 
 CCXXII. Cases 
 
 is a superb example of the ability of Venice in this kind of lace. It is a 
 very deep flounce, composed entirely of tendrils, leaves and flowers, follow- 
 ing each other in varied combinations of perfect naturalness and grace, exe- 
 cuted in a ribbon of close stitch bordered with a fine cord, held together by 
 purled bars and having the hearts of the flowers composed of fancy com- 
 plicated stitches. It belonged to the patrician family Buoncompagni of Bo- 
 logna, and is said to have been made for Pope Gregory XIII. when he was 
 yet Cardinal Ugo Buoncompagni. 
 
 See Photographic Album. 
 
 The Italian Artist whose pictures most faithfully reproduce the em- 
 broideries, laces and splendour of costume which distinguished this cen- 
 tury, was Lavinia Fontana of Bologna, born in 1552. She was greatly pa- 
 tronized by this house and received frequent orders from pope Gregory XIII.; 
 she not only enjoyed a deservedly great reputation in her own country, 
 
 13 
 
98 
 
 (some of her paintings having been attributed to Guido Reni) but her name 
 was known far and wide, and the king of Spain considered her work worthy 
 of occupying a prominent place in the Escurial. 
 
 CCCCLXX., CCCCLXXXII., CCCCXLII. Screen. 
 
 Other examples of Venetian Guipure are CCCCLXX., CCCCLXXXII. 
 and CCCCXLII, a beautiful piece of this lace belonging to a lady of Genoa, 
 and CCCV., CCCLIX. and others on the screen. 
 
 CCGVIL, CCCLXIII. Screen 
 
 are made in another variety of bobbin guipure, purely Italian in style and 
 execution which has never been copied in other countries; it was produced 
 in Italy alone, and there only about Venice, Ragusa and on the shores of 
 the Riviera by the fisherfolk who destined it for the service of the church. 
 In order to distinguish it from the numerous other varietes of Genoese gui- 
 pure it is here designated by the name of Rapallo, to which village, with 
 the neighbouring Santa Margarita, is attributed the earliest manufacture of 
 this kind of lace. In the Register of the parish church at Santa Margarita 
 exists an old parchment design for working this lace (which has been repro- 
 duced in the school Brazza) ; it must be of very antique origin for on its back 
 is noted a list of old fishing nets and laces presented as a votive offering 
 to the church in 1592 by the fishermen after a successful season of coral 
 fishing. 
 
 CCCVII. Screen., DCLII. Cases. 
 
 In N.° CCCVII., and among the samples exhibited by the Nuns of the 
 Ursuline convent at Cividale in Friuli, DCLII. who guard the only Longo- 
 bard temple still existing, 
 
 CCLXVIII. Cases. 
 
 and in CCLXVIII. 2. we have samples of this lace, of which a beautiful 
 piece is in the possession of the chapter of St. Daniele in the same pro- 
 vince. 
 
 The finest specimens are only to be found in the churches, but the 
 Government does not permit real Art treasures of any kind to leave the 
 country and we were too pressed for time to have them photographed; no 
 more perfect example could however be desired than this rare and beautiful 
 lace, which when it is made so very fine is called vermicelli, exhibited on 
 the surplice 
 
CXLVI. Cases. 
 
 99 
 
 N.° CXLVI. Here the design, is formed entirely of narrow cords, wo- 
 ven in the most difficult of all bobbin stitches to work continuously and with 
 regularity, as is done here. This lace, is placed at the foot and around the 
 neck and sleeves and on the shoulders where it is mixed with reticellas of an 
 antique surplice, the seams of which are held together by curious buttons 
 and loops. This garment possesses a twofold historical interest. In the first 
 place because it belongs to the son of Angelica Bafico, the clever noble- 
 hearted woman of the people who, in the second quarter of this century, 
 devoted her entire zeal and intelligence to the successful revival of the lace 
 industry in Liguria, and whose name has, among lace makers, become a 
 synonym for thrift and intelligence. Secondly, because this antique lace and 
 the Indian Muslin of which it is composed was presented to the great Car- 
 thusian monastery in Pavia by the Emperor Napoleon the First ; who knows 
 where that great collector and rcdistributor of anticpiities had picked it up. 
 
 In the sea-beaten willages situated on the shores of the Gulf of Genoa 
 where these laces were made, whilst the men were engaged in fishing, or 
 on long voyages in the great Venetian and Genoese merchant vessels, their 
 wives and daughters who staid at home worked diligently with the bobbins 
 or needle, producing well paid laces the price of which added to the family 
 comfort, or formed a sum with which to start in honsekeeping when the 
 lover returned from the perils of the deep to claim the yonng girl whom 
 he had courted during the previous winter; the arsenals and foundries in 
 Spezia and about Genoa, combined with the work of that great port have 
 modified customs in Liguria, but this simple story is repeated year by year 
 at Burano and round Venice, thanks to the thrift of the female population 
 and to the prosperity produced by the earnings and educational influence of 
 the Lace schools. The romances of the lace makers have crystalized in a 
 pretty tale abont the invention of the fairy like " Rose point, e se non e 
 vera 4 ben tropato, and worthy to be repeated. It appears that at the epoch 
 when every second woman in Venice, rich or poor, was occupied in making 
 point lace, a sailor lover brought home to his sweet heart some strange 
 and lovely growths which he had picked up from the bottom of the sea 
 while gathering coral, and thinking of her. On his return home he offered 
 her these " frutti di mare „ — or sea-fruits — as the Italians appro- 
 priately call them, as a simple memento of his summer toils and as a proof 
 of his faithful memory of her, and then shortly afterwards started on another 
 much longer and more perilous voyage from which he would return with 
 plenty of honestly earned gold with which to begin in comfort their youug 
 wedded life. 
 
 In parting he sought to console her with pictures of his glad return, 
 and jestingly warned her not to put out the fire of her bright eyes with 
 too much useless weeping, but to use it to direct her needle in making such 
 
100 
 
 a beautiful wedding veil, as would cause him to find as smart a bride as 
 any lord's awaiting him on his return. Her loving heart treasured up this 
 parting advice, and she determined to follow it by picturing in lace each 
 simple gill; of his, so that on her bridal day they would shew who occupied 
 her thoughts during the months of separation. With true artistic talent 
 and infinite patience she wove in finest thread the reproductions of the tiny 
 shells and of the frills upon frills that composed tha delicate sea weeds, 
 and among these she cosily placed imitations of starfish, sea anemonies and 
 other marine gems, all held together by delicate tendrils copied from fine 
 sea weeds, and when the happy day dawned that was to crown their faithful 
 hearts, the simple Venetian maiden, blushing beneath her handiwork in such 
 a veil as no crowned head had ever prided itsef on wearing, stepped forth 
 to meet her lover and presented to the sunlight the first example of that ra- 
 rest and most delicate of all laces, the inestimable " Rose Point „, of which 
 many of the beautiful Venetian point laces 
 
 MXXXIII.-MXL. Royal laces. 
 
 from MXXXIII. to MXL., exhibited by Her Majesty the Queen of Italy are 
 composed. 
 
 CXIV. Cases. 
 The small fichu N.° CXIV. and the deep cuff CLXXII. 
 
 CLXXII. Cases. 
 
 are such fine and complicated examples of this lace that they are worthy 
 to be placed with their Royal sister to illustrate the story. 
 
 While the professional lace makers toiled with inventive zeal, they were 
 not forgotten or neglected by the high born patronesses of all that was beau- 
 tiful; a Lady Mary of the great name of Morosini, which is synonymous with 
 the honor and glory of Venice, had no sooner married than her bright intel- 
 ligence, inspired by a fervent desire to benefit her country women, made use 
 of the experienced gained in the work room of her father's palace to start 
 a school and large atelier which she personally superintended, and soon became 
 one of the greatest and most indefatigable protectresses of artistic design 
 and perfect execution in the various Venetian points. Another daughter of 
 the same house, another Lady Mary, who married the Doge Marin Grimani, 
 also devoted her privy purse to found a great atelier in the quarter of Santa 
 Fosca, endowing it with a permanent teacher and directress who was gua- 
 ranteed every comfort and a pension for life; this school produced the cle- 
 ver work women who executed those beautiful laces which tempted the 
 wealthy of the whole of Europe, and which caused Cardinal Mazarin, and 
 
101 
 
 afterwards Colbert to cast such envious glances on this source of prosperity 
 for Venice; probably its busy work rooms were those visited by the French 
 Ambassador whom Colbert had instructed to spy out all details concerning 
 the production of bobbin and needle lace; and probably also it was there 
 that this same French nobleman bought the very pieces of point winch he 
 writes to Colbert he is sending him to illustrate his report, and to serve as 
 experimental patterns for the French work-women. 
 
 The directresses of this exhibit have been unsuccessful in their endea- 
 voous to open the ancient wardrobes of this great family, and to draw from 
 perfumed darkness some rare bit of old Venetian point which would carry 
 to America the memory of this old atelier, and of historic and philantropic 
 deeds in the old Republican city with which the name of Morosini is insepa- 
 rably associated in the mind of every school girl ; notwithstanding there are 
 no lack of illustrations furnished by great Venetian Families, as the Countess 
 Papadopoli has contributed a rare collection of historical laces which will 
 be described later on and the family 
 
 ccccxxiii. , cay: xx r. n 'a u. 
 
 of Falier which has counted so many doges, ambassadors and senators among 
 its sons has had its historic laces photographed for the ladies, CCCCXXIII. 
 shewing, interlaced among the delicate blossoms of Rose point, the doge's 
 horn and double Fs forming the monogram of the personage for whom 
 the lace was executed. Lucca Cathedral also sends a superb photograph 
 
 CCCCXXI. Wall. 
 
 of the Dame quality of rose point ; and the princess Corsini, one of the 
 Queen's ladies of the palace and who is also a Patroness, contributes a most 
 interesting collection of photographs of the superb Venetian lace existing among 
 the innumerable art treasures which form part of the heirlooms of that great 
 Italian house ; of these 
 
 CCCCXU.A. Wall 
 
 is taken from a superb piece of Reticella of the Sixteenth Century, com- 
 posed of leaves and discs and edged whith deep turrets. 
 
 CCCCXLIB. Wall 
 
 is the photograph of a magnificent deep flounce in Rose point of the Seven- 
 teenth Century, whith a monogram and, princely crown surmounted by a ca- 
 nopy, representing the special distinction of the " baldachino or canopy 
 accorded to Roman princes. 
 
102 
 
 CCCCXLIII.A. Wall 
 
 Belongs to the same trimming, and constitutes the lower end of one of 
 the lace aprons which were the fashion in the Seventeenth Century. 
 
 CCCCXLII1. B. Wall 
 
 Represents a perfectly preserved square collar in the form of a jabot, 
 such as is worn by Colbert in his portrait, trimmed with richly worked 
 Punto Tagliato a fogliame. 
 
 CCCCXLI1I. C. Wall 
 
 is reproduced from a cuff and border of rich rose point belonging to the 
 same family. 
 
 DXL1II. lo DLXXI. Album. 
 
 DXLIII. DXLV. and the succeeding N.° DLXXI. are all photographs 
 of Venetian embroideries and laces of this epoch, still existing in the pro- 
 vince of Udine. 
 
 The Rezzonico Family, of which pope Clement the VII. was a mem- 
 ber is represented not only by the superb Venetian Point lace, 
 
 MIV. Cases. 
 
 of the Eighteenth Century, belonging to her Majesty Queen Margaret, and 
 which has been so frequently and so perfectly copied at Burano, but also 
 by a surplice, 
 
 CXCVI. Cases. 
 
 in exquisitely embroidered muslin, with insertions of pillow lace, and bordered 
 with chow lace of the kind made by the Salesian Nuns. 
 
 This surplice is lent by the lady patroness who now occupies the 
 vast and solemn palace built in the childhood of that pontiff, and which of 
 late years became the last earthly dwelling place of the glorious poet Brown- 
 ing, whose son she married. 
 
 CCCLXXXVI. Cases. 
 
 N.° CCCLXXXVI., near by, was also made by Nuns of the same or- 
 der. Tradition says that this surplice was made for the Rezzonico Pope, 
 Clement VII. as an offering from his native city; and the admirers of the 
 
103 
 
 great poet presented it to him in recognition of his love for Italy and Ve- 
 nice, and above all as a memento of the mighty Pope who, in his youth, 
 passed musingly in and out of its great saloons and marble courts. 
 
 DIP'. Cases 
 
 is another surplice and the most antique in the historic group; it dates from 
 the Sixteenth Century and is composed entirely of bands of finest Burato, 
 worked in trapunto and trimmed with insertions and borders of Genoese 
 point; it is the property of the old Boiognese family of Dallolio a dangther 
 of which has perpetuated its name and fame by her poems. Other beautiful 
 flounces and bits of rose, and the different Venetian Pouts which have been 
 left unmentioned are : 
 
 DCXX1L Cases. 
 
 a jabot of fine rose point 
 
 CCCLXXX1V. Cases. 
 CCCLXXXIV. a cuff of the earliest quality of the same. 
 
 CCCXLIJI. Screen. 
 a square of elaborate rose point 
 
 CCCXL I '. Screen. 
 
 a cuff of the same 
 
 CCCXXJX. Screen. 
 
 a piece of ivory point 
 
 CCCXL1X. Screen. 
 a square edged with Punto Tagliato a fogliame. 
 
 C, CI I. Cases. 
 
 two flounces one of Punto in Aria and the other of ivory point, belonging 
 to tho most flourishing period of this lace, and 
 
104 
 
 CCLXVI. Cases. 
 
 is interesting as forming the square border, in the same lace, of one of the 
 immense handkerchiefs which necessarily supplemented the jewelled snuff -boxes 
 inseparable from the deep pockets of the period. Finally we linger beside 
 
 CCL1 7., CCLVJ1L, CCLX. Cases. 
 
 a flounce consisting of the softest, most exquisite quality of Venetian Punto 
 in Aria, composed entirely of fine leaves and delicate tendrils; this was the 
 favourite lace of Louis XIV, and which Colbert sought but too successfully 
 to have copied by Frenchwomen and established as a French product. 
 
 CCLX. consists of the deep cuffs or revers worn at that period ; and 
 CCLVIH. of the narrow trimming of the same lace. This superb lace ori- 
 ginally belonged to the house of Navarre. It is not generally known how 
 much the wise statesman coveted for the industry of his country the well-filled 
 sacks of golden coin which were sent each year to Italy in exchange for these 
 delicate fabrics. 
 
 From MDCXIII. under Richelieu, severe restrictions followed by abso- 
 lute prohibitions such as the famous Code Michaud and the supplementary 
 ones which continued to appear from time to time, had been promulgated in 
 vain against every kind of lace, and have been most wittily recorded in the 
 satire called the Revolle des Passements, dedicatd to Madmoiselle de la Frousse 
 Madame de Sevigne's (*) neice. But these wise laws by which Cardinals 
 Mazzarin and Colbert tried to limit the terrible extravagance of the French 
 nobility had been enacted in vain, and the fashion for lace was as great, and 
 the resistance to their decrees as obstinate as the determination to follow 
 the example of the young Roi soleil and his gaudy butterfly court could 
 inspire. For the young king was the first to defy the law, having inherited 
 from his Italian grandmother a love for fine clothes and a special fondness 
 for Venetian lace which set a ruinous example to those who surrounded 
 him. His weakness was so well known that a rich Englishman, desirous of 
 ingratiating himself with the king, travelled in his private carriage all the 
 way to Venice, where he had a wonderful hat manufactured of the finest 
 Venetian point all in soft, white, human hair to offer as a rare and be- 
 coming present to the youthful Monarch on his coronation, a little attention 
 which cost the rich Briton forty eight thousand lire for the hat, without 
 counting the expense, worry, anxiet}* and fatigue incident on a journey with 
 so precious an article at that period. 
 
 Colbert's quick intelligence realized that the time had come when the 
 rich would have their luxuries at any price, and that the only way to stop 
 
 (*) This piece is very curions, and full of information about the laces in use in the time 
 of Louis XIV. and as it has not heen given in any modern publication we have considered it 
 worth while to reprint it entirely in the appendix, at the end of this book. 
 
105 
 
 the progressive impoverishment of the country was to be able to rival with 
 home products, executed with the same means and effects, the alluring beau- 
 ties from afar; for this Italian lace especially seemed to bewitch all who saw 
 it, and to exercise a fatal attraction to reckless extravagance; he therefore 
 studied the question thoroughly, prepared everything with minute care, and 
 when he had found a soil suited to the coveted product, he managed, by 
 promises of great rewards and special favour, to persuade skilled workwomen 
 to come and teach their secrets to the less able lace makers of France. Ma- 
 zarin had done the same with other trades, and Venice, who now saw her 
 cleverest artisans slipping away from the workshops, was forced in self 
 defence to promulgate a severe decree inflcting imprisonment, and even 
 death, on the families of those emigrants who should continue to absent 
 themselves, at the same time promising not only full pardon but also hon- 
 ours and lucrative employment if they returned ; it was however now too 
 late; the barrier was broken down; cupidity on the one side and French 
 intelligence, high patronage and the irresistible will of the Grand Monarque, 
 backed by the genius of Colbert on the other, had conquered, and the 
 Queen of Commerce was destined to see her monopoly of the manufacture 
 and trade of her laces slowly ruined by the fierce competition, business en- 
 terprise and clever statescraft of other nations. Ten years o( able manage- 
 ment permanently established the manufacture of point lace in France. The 
 exclusive right of manufacture had been ceded for this period to a society 
 having such directors as Pluymers, Lebie and Lebie de Pcaufort in whose 
 hotel at Paris the emporium was opened and the board sat. 
 
 The King's smile was, in those days, worth all the most attractive mod- 
 ern advertising. When His Majesty went after supper to the Hotel Beau- 
 fort to see the new laces, designated them by the sounding title of Grand point 
 de France „ and declared himself highly pleased with them, who could fail 
 to be pleased also ? and when, soon after, he opened the wonderful new pa- 
 vilions at Marly, and each lady of the court who was his guest on that occasion 
 found a complete garniture of this same lace awaiting her in her dressing 
 room as a delicate attention from the king (a prize packet advertisement worthy 
 of so great a personage) how could she fail to discard her Venetian point and 
 to wear instead the new lace in honour of the most amiable of hosts? And when 
 all the lucky women who went to Marly had French lace, how could the 
 unlucky ones who were not invited appear at Court in Italian point as a per- 
 petual reminder of their enforced absence? 
 
 Thus was floated a new industry in the Seventeenth Century, and it 
 strikes me that behind its high flown compliments and graceful elegances 
 was hidden all the business astuteness of nineteenth century work-a-day Paris. 
 
 This clever stroke is recorded by Boileau in his epitre au Koi. 
 " Ft nos voisins frustes de ces tributs serviles 
 " Que payait a leur art lc luxe de nos villes. „ 
 
 The gains of the Society were naturally very great, but on the expir- 
 
 14 
 
io6 
 
 ation of the monopoly it was not renewed, as Colbert desired prosperity 
 among the people and a more rapid diffusion of the new industry than 
 could possibly take place under even the most extensive of monopolies. Ne- 
 vertheless, the Society had started schools in Aurillac, Sedan, Duquesnoy, 
 Arras, Loudun, etc. but these places soon lapsed again into making the 
 bobbin-lace for which they had been previously known; it was in Alengon, 
 in the neighbouring town of Argentan and surrounding villages that the new 
 variety of needle lace took root, and this is easily accounted for by the fact 
 that the tradition already existed there : Catherine de' Medici had received 
 the county of Alengon as her dower, and on her long visits to the Castle 
 she surrounded herself with ladies of that province whom she inspired with 
 her love for working in reticella, embroidered net, and the laces of her 
 time. These ladies taught all their friends, and the fashion gradually spread, 
 so that when Colbert, in 1545, began to look round for favourable spots 
 in which to start the new industry, the intelligent Favier Duboulay, who 
 in his official position at Alengon had every opportunity for observing, wrote 
 to him that all the women and children in and around Alengon and Ar- 
 gentan were busied in producing velin, which Avas what they called reticella 
 on account of the parchment on which it was worked, and this term was 
 afterwards retained by them to designate the needle point which supplanted 
 it. He also wrote that for several years a certain Marthe Barbot, dame la 
 Perriere, who had learned the Art in Venice, had been perfecting so many of 
 the abler workwomen in point lace, that there were 8000 who were engaged 
 on the finer qualities and M. m& la Perriere was able to sell the products of 
 her ateliers, for which there was great demand, at very high prices. 
 
 It would seem that here the monopoly should have immediately and 
 greatly prospered, but the people were accustomed to work at home, and re- 
 sisted the innovation in every possible way ; still, forced to submission by the 
 government officials, they produced beautiful work and, through the company 
 and the Italian teachers furnished by it, learned what Colbert desired. This 
 story is less romantic than that telling of M. me Gilbert, of Colbert's niece the 
 Abbess, etc. and of Colbert's moated castle of Lonrai in which Mrs. Palliser 
 says the manufactory was started under the direction of the wonderfully 
 clever though mythical Madame Gilbert, who at great expense, had brought 
 thirty lacemakers from Venice, and of which she gives an illustration in 
 her history of lace. 
 
 This frail fabrication however crumbles before the fact that the castle 
 of Lonrai did not come into the Colbert family until his eldest son, Jean 
 Raptiste, married Catherine Therese de Martignon to whose family it had 
 long belonged and who brought it as her dower, in 1679, fourteen years 
 ofter the opening of the lace schools by the Company. The lace which the 
 women preferred to make at Alengon was not the regular point de Venise, 
 although this was executed when ordered, but was the lighter. Burano point 
 which came into fashion when that pretty, porcelain beauty, the Fontanges, 
 
107 
 
 decided to cover her skirts as well as her head and arms (she would rather 
 have died than have hid her graceful neck) with rich though light laces, 
 wishing to produce an airy effect suited to her style of beauty ; of course 
 the old and fat ladies of the court then adopted this style of dress also, and the 
 more severe Venetian Punto Tagliato a fogliame and Spanish points better 
 suited to their proportions were abandoned to the men and the priests, for 
 the little Seventeenth Century moths, who aped the butterflies and were 
 known as abbes also preferred the light laces adopted by the women round 
 whom they eternally fluttered. Pupa~~e or babies, as the great lay figures 
 dressed in the latest fashions were called in England, were* sent every year 
 from the French capital to all parts of the world. The costumes of the Italian 
 ladies were as superb as those of the French Court, as is seen by the gold 
 embroidery : 
 
 CXC. Cases. 
 
 made at Florence, and by portraits of the period. French taste was every 
 thing; French cut " de rigueur „ and when Louis the Fourteenth visited 
 Italy, the ladies who received and feasted him endeavoured, as we see from 
 the paintings illustrating his three visits to Bologna in l78"r6 - 8, to appear 
 more French than the ladies who accompanied him. 
 
 CCCVIL, CCCIX., CCCXI. Screen. 
 
 For the costumes of this golden age of lace were, from 1530 to 1796, 
 minutely portrayed six times a year in animated scenes peopled by cele- 
 brities, plainted in water colours on parchment and bound in sixteen large 
 volumes wich are preserved in the State Archives of Bologna. These are 
 the cartoons of the Insignia (from " Cose insigne „ or remarkable) and are 
 the recosds of the names and arms of the (ionfaloniere of Justice and the 
 eight " Ancients „ two for each quarter or gate of the city, who governed 
 Bologna for two months and were then succeeded by other nine of the 
 most prominent nobles and citizens. It was the custom to illustrate the most 
 important events of these short administrations, and to this we are indebted 
 for these most remarkable paintings. Now and then comes a sad note of pe- 
 stilence or death, but as a rule we are treated to exact and minute repro- 
 ductions of great receptions, processions, feasts, tournaments, games, spectacles 
 and religious ceremonies in honour of some visiting prince or potentate. 
 Here we see represented the black lace and deep point d'Angleterre, flounces 
 which Madame de Sevigne writes about as having just come into fashion 
 under the name of jupes transparentes, and as being so bewitching. 
 
 The passion for black lace was so great at the period when it first 
 came into use, that the designs were even printed in black upon linen, 
 and dresses were trimmed with these borders to simulate the original and 
 
108 
 
 expensive new variety of lace. A piece of this old-fashioned " print „ is 
 exhibited in the Insignia on 
 
 CCCI. Screen. 
 
 Deep flounces and black laces are worn by the ladies, with coiffures a la 
 Fontange (coxcombs of lace) filled in with feathers behind and exaggerated 
 out af all resemblance to the dainty lace kerchief which the fair one, whose 
 name they bear, tied so gracefully about her pretty head when the truant 
 wind played havoc with her tresses at the king's hunting parties. 
 
 These same ladies have dresses cut as low as they were worn at the 
 French court, and are edged with lace or passement. They wear long gloves 
 and carry their muffs every where with them just as our elegantes did their 
 boas three years ago. We see these muffs at the banquet given by the Gon- 
 faloniere Francesco Ratta in 1692, which was so very grand and solemn a 
 function that every guest appeared with her invitation in her hand to 
 prove her right to be present, and there seems to havt been no end of 
 jealousy, coufusion and disgust about places according to rank; the sketch 
 illustratiug 1600-1700 was taken from this painting. The muffs, the Fon- 
 tanges, and the low necked dresses accompanied their mistresses also to the 
 solemn aula of the University when they went to hear the wonderfully 
 learned and equally yonthful and clever Laura Bassi lecture on philosophy, 
 while they ogled the men who wore quite as big wigs, stiff coat skirts 
 and elegant cravats and other lace furbelows and whatnots as did their 
 cousins at the French court at Versailles. 
 
 It is to be hoped that all these dressy Bolognese were patriotic enough 
 to wear the Burano point, from which the Alencon was copied, and had 
 not imported all their laces with the fashions from France as they did dur- 
 ing the Empire; for this old Burano lace is so beautiful and soft that it 
 truly deserved a better fate. 
 
 CCLXVIL, CCLXIX. Screen. 
 
 CCLXXVII., CCLXIX. on the screen and CCCCLXXVI. CCCVIII. in the 
 cases are examples of how it was worked, being pieces left unfinished in 
 the convents by nuns long since gone to their last home. 
 
 CCCVIII. Cases. 
 
 N.° CCCVIII. cases is especially lovely in design, with its tiny cornu- 
 copias full of microscopic flowers. 
 
 CCLXXI. CCLXXIII. Screen., CCCIL, CCCI V. A. B. C. Cases. 
 
 N. os CCLXXI. and CCLXXIII. screen and the collection CCCII. and 
 CCCIV A. B. C. cases, are pieces of it, many of them are in a very ragged 
 
109 
 
 and neglected state, but they still serve to prove the beauty of design and 
 workmanship of old Burano lace. 
 
 CCCIV. shows the shape of the sleeve-falls made in the eighteenth 
 Century. 
 
 CCLXVLA. and B. Cases. 
 
 CCLXVI. A. exhibited by signora Area of Padua 
 
 CCV1IL, CCXIV. Cases. 
 
 CCVIIt. is a flounce, and CCXIV. a barbc belonging to the Countess Papa* 
 dopoli of Venice. 
 
 CCCCXXXVI. Cases. 
 
 CCCCXXXVI. barbes belonging to the Countess Biacceschi, are all rarely 
 beautiful pieces of this Italian lace, and nothing from Brussels, Alencon or 
 Argentan has ever surpassed it. That the ladies of Italy in the Eighteenth 
 Century appreciated the French adaptation of their art is illustrated by the 
 following lists which form a catalogue of the foreign laces which their de- 
 scendants send to the Exhibition. 
 
 To begin with Alencon, as having been the first French centre of lace 
 making : 
 
 MXLI. Royal lace. 
 
 Her Majesty Queen Margaret exhibits: MXLI., one of the trimmings 
 which, starting from the neck and reaching to the edge of the skirt, were 
 the fashion during the reign of Louis XV. in the Eighteenth Century. 
 
 MXL1I. Royal lace. 
 
 A cap of the same period. 
 
 MXL11I. Royal lace. 
 
 A Flounce. 
 
 MXLIV. Royal lace. 
 
 " ditto „ 
 
 MXLV. Royal lace. 
 
 " ditto „ 
 
110 
 
 MXLVI. Royal lace. 
 
 " ditto „ 
 
 and MXLVII., MXLVIII, MXLIX., ML., are all small pieces of the diffe- 
 rent laces Her Majesty has lent to the school of Burano to be copied. Other 
 ladies who exhibit interesting pieces of Alencon are the Countess Papado- 
 poli, who contributes the Jabot worked in tiny bees worn by Jerome Bona- 
 parte, king of Westphalia, at the coronation of his brother the emperor Na- 
 poleon. It was presented to the Countess Angelica Aldobrandini by his son, 
 prince Napoleon, on her .marriage with the great-grandfather of the present 
 Count. The reliefs in this piece of lace, as in some of those of her Majesty 
 are stuffed with horse hair, as was the early Venetian point lace, but it is 
 not pleasant to wear as the sharp ends come out after a time. 
 
 CCXII. Cases 
 
 belongs to the same lady patroness, and has a charming Louis XVI. design 
 of tiny bunches of flowers held by bows. 
 
 CCXVI. Cases 
 also belongs to the same, but is of the reign of Louis XV. 
 
 CCLXXII. Cases 
 is exibited by Signora Anais Forlani of Padua. 
 
 CXXII. Cases 
 
 is a round cuff of the same lace, exhibited by Countess Colleoni 
 CLX. Cases 
 
 belongs to the Countess Bonin, and was inherited from the Empress Maria 
 Louisa through her family ; it is copied in the design 48 made at Burano. 
 
 DXX. Cases. 
 
 Two broad scarf ends. 
 
 DLXIV., DLXVL, DLXVJJl Cases. 
 Three trimmings of the same. 
 
1 1 1 
 
 DLXX1I. Cases. 
 
 a pretty edging of the same. 
 
 On the screen are exhibited numhers CCLXXV., CCLXXVII. and a 
 hit of machine-made imitation, CCLXXIX, for comparison. 
 
 The Alencon lace manufacturers worked each in his own name and 
 on his own reputation, and ohjected to any one of their city participating 
 in the special privileges attendant on those days on the title and position 
 of purveyor to the king; but at Argentan two or three ateliers enjoyed the 
 coveted title, and most of the laces for the use of the Royal family, and 
 especially for the Royal treasury were made there. Her Majesty Queen Mar- 
 garet possesses the most beautiful existing examples of this lace, and exhibits 
 the following pieces. 
 
 MI. Royal Laces. 
 
 Is an immense bed-cover which is used by Queens of the House of 
 Savoy during the ceremonies and receptions following the entrance of their 
 Royal offspring upon the stage of life; it served in the Carignano palace at 
 Turin, at the birth of his Majesty Victor Emmanuel in the room of which 
 Her Majesty sends a photograph. 
 
 MIL Royal Lace. 
 
 Is a deep flounce consisting of a pastoral design containing ladies swinging; 
 it is said to have been designed by Watteau, and served, with N.° MI., in the 
 rich decoration of the princess's apartment. 
 
 Mill. Royal laces. 
 
 Is a deep flounce, designed with illustrations of animals taken from Esop's 
 fables. 
 
 MV. Royal lace. 
 
 was made cxpecially by order of Napoleon the First as a present for Car- 
 dinal RetZ, and MVI1I. among the narrow flounces, is the trimming that 
 matches it. This lace is composed of large medallions containing flowers and 
 doves on a fine tulle ground, held together by bows and garlands of ribbon 
 on a large mesh ground. It illustrates the innovation of shading the flowers 
 — petal one being made in close stitch, and the other in sheer stitch — 
 which was introduced in 18^7, and gave rise to a tremendous amount 
 of criticism; but it had so lovely an effect that it established itself in lace 
 making. 
 
112 
 
 CVI. Royal laces. 
 
 is a flounce which has a design of balustrades and stairs, and vases, such as 
 was very much the fashion in the floriate rococo decoration prevalent in 
 the first half of the XVIII. century 
 
 CVII. Royal laces. 
 
 is a flounce on which grasses and swans are represented. 
 
 MIX., MX., MXI., MXIL, MXIIL, MXIV., MXV., MX VI, MX VI I., 
 MX 1111, MXIX., MXX. Royal laces. 
 
 MIX. to MXX. are all pieces of narrower lace of the same quality, many of 
 which have served as models in the Burano Scool, MXI., MXIL, MXIII., 
 MIV. being shaped to form the Berta-like trimming worn round the should- 
 ers, and first introduced by Madame de Maintenon ; and MXIX., one of 
 the rich frills for elbow sleeves worn at the same time. 
 
 Among other ladies who exhibit pieces of this beautiful lace 
 
 CLXIV. Cases. 
 
 M. rs Hungerford sends CLXIV., with a design of lakes and bridges in the 
 finest possible quality of Argentan, and 
 
 CLXXX., CLXXXII A. B. 
 
 are pretty examples consisting of 2 barbes and a trimming of one design. 
 Marie Antoinette loved to adorn her delicate beauty with all that had a soft 
 airy effect, and the world followed her example, for she was literally the Queen 
 of fashion in the Eighteenth century, as she held long and serious consul- 
 tations with the great milliner, Mademoiselle Berti, who was called to Ver- 
 sailles for the purpose as a real prime minister would be, to decide grave 
 questions of shades and forms, and who on her return to Paris, published the 
 autocratic decrees of fashion from which there was no appeal. This Queen, 
 surrounded by her family, has therefore been taken as the subject for the 
 prevailing fashion in lace during the Eighteenth Century. Her love of all 
 that was light in effect, and of the Indian mull embroideries which resemble 
 lace, such as 
 
 CCLVU. Screen. 
 
 called Broderie des Indes, but which were not quite light enough to satisfy 
 her fancy, must have originated the lace composed of designs in fine linen 
 
113 
 
 lawn, delicately worked in lace stitch round the edge, and held together 
 by bars as in Venetian point: 
 
 CCLXII. Cases. 
 
 N.° CCLXII. belonging to M.™ Orville Horwitz; or applied on a ground 
 composed of all the 65 varieties of Argentan stitches as in the flounce 
 
 XCV1. Cases. 
 
 which seems the embodiment of the graceful Royal pastorals at which the 
 youthful Queen played in the park at Trianon, 
 
 CCXCII. Cases 
 
 is a veil, most artistically embroidered in thin lawn dots on the finest Point 
 de Paris, which is a variety of the bobbin lace made at Malines, engrafted 
 on the coarser pillow laces made about Paris in the Seventeenth Century. 
 This veil belonged to the Empress Marie Louise, as did the soft laces 
 
 CCXCIV., CCXCVJ. Cases. 
 which, were worn by Napoleon, together with the three Jabots 
 CCC. Cases, 
 
 one of which is worked in roses, and the other two in lotus flowers, evi- 
 dently in honour of the Egyptian campaign. Another piece of lace, 
 
 CCXCVIII. Cases 
 
 which belonged to the Empress Marie Louise, is an exquisite example of fine 
 Valenciennes, and was also made when everything Egyptian was the fashion 
 in France. 
 
 CLXXVUI.A. and B., CCLXXV1U. Cases. 
 
 are other examples of Point de Paris, belonging to different Patronesses. 
 
 CCXCVJ/. Screen. 
 
 Many other thread pillow laces were made in France beside the 
 blondes of Normandy and the tambour laces of Brittany CCXCVII. em- 
 
 15 
 
114 
 
 broidered on tulle — net — in chain stitch, darning, or applied mull, 
 such as 
 
 CCCLXIV. Cases. 
 
 a veil from Spain, embroidered with the royal crown and initials, which 
 was made for Queen Christina, wife to Ferdinand the Seventh ; 
 
 CLIV., CCLXXVI. Cases. 
 
 And N. uS 
 
 CCCXXXl Screen. 
 
 are of the same kind of lace from Italy. 
 
 French laces in the style of Torchons were made in the mountains 
 as at Le Puy, and the same laces were also produced in large quantities in 
 Switzerland, in Germany and in all the other nations of Europe. 
 
 Laces in the style of Valenciennes were made on the sea-coast at 
 Dieppe, Havre, Honfieur, etc., the other finer qualities resembling those of 
 Belgium 
 
 C XV III. Cases. 
 
 were made principally at Chantilly and at Mirecourt, Arras, Bailleul, and, 
 above all, at Lille in the North. 
 
 CCCCLXXII. Cases. 
 
 is of a particularly fine quality of Lille lace, and belongs of the reign of 
 Louis XVI during which it was very much the fashion, as were all the 
 Flanders laces from which it originated. 
 
 In Germany the art of bobbin lace making developed in the Sixteenth 
 Century, but it is only of late years that needle lace has been produced in 
 any quantity by the Teutonic races. Augsburg, being in most frequent co- 
 muaication with Italy and Belgium, was the centre of trade at that time; and 
 here pattern books were published, so that this city and the surrounding 
 country became the German centre of lace making. Barbara Ullmann was a 
 native of this city or of the neighbouring Nuremberg, and when she married 
 into the then wild district of the Hartz nountains, finding the miners' wives 
 about her new home miking nets of bone lace like that of Panapolis, she un- 
 dertook to teach them the perfected lace she had learned as a girl. Her pupils 
 wjre apt, an ! the industry grew rapidly under har intelligent direction, bring- 
 
115 
 
 ing money and civilization to the inhabitants of the entire province in which 
 Annasberg, where she resided, was situated, and when she died in ripe old 
 age, in 1575, she was mourned by thirty thousand workwomen who had 
 learned the new trade, and 68 children and grand children accompanied her 
 body to the grave, thus fulfilling the prophecy of a gypsy who had foretold 
 to her that for every stitch she should teach the poor people God would 
 send an increase to her family. The story must have grown out of the coin- 
 cidence of numbers, but it is firmly believed in all Saxony and Bohemia 
 where her name is greatly revered, and a superb statue has been raised to 
 her memory in Annaberg. The Huguenots and Protestants who took refuge in 
 Northern Germany, Denmark, Sweden and England spread the manufacture 
 of pillow lace wherever they settled clown, as it was the handiest means 
 of self support, and always paid well, both in selling and in teaching its se- 
 crets to others. In England it also spread owing to the yearly distribution 
 of special prizes to encourage perfection in his class of handy-work. In [re- 
 land, as in all catholic countries in which lace has been introduced. Nuns 
 taught it to their pupils. 
 
 In Scotland, Elizabeth, Duchess of Hamilton, tried in 1 745, to estab- 
 lish it, but with small success, and its manufacture gradually died out. 
 
 Pieces of lace and samples from all these countries, as well as from 
 South America and ("eylon are included in this exhibit, but are marked 
 with the name of the country in which they were manufactured, as they 
 exerted no influence on Italian lace making. With Flanders it is different; its 
 wonderfully even and superior threads had enjoyed a great reputation in Italy 
 as early as the Thirteenth Century, if not before, and were exclusively used 
 for lace making in Venice. During the latter part of the Sixteenth Century it 
 furnished most of the laces used in Spain, and was always the most celebrated 
 producer of pillow lace, but how this art developed to the transcendental 
 complication it reached in the finest Binche and Brussels laces, of which it takes 
 a clever workwoman a year to produce half a yard of edging three inches 
 wide, see 
 
 CXXIV., CCLXX.D. Cases, 
 
 I have not had time to find out, and hearsay is a poor staff to lean 
 upon unless well coated with solid documentary evidence. In any case the 
 manufacture of those delicate airy laces which have never been equalled by 
 pillow laces from any other part of the world began in the XVII. century. 
 In Holland and Belgium each town had its speciality, attractive and different 
 from that of the others. Brussels, the capital of all, worked both in needle 
 in the style of Burano, sec 
 
n6 
 
 CCLXX. A. Cases. 
 in pillow lace resembling, the oldest Mechlin lace, see 
 CCX1I. Cases. 
 
 and in point d'Angleterre which is a mixture of the two, originally invented 
 for the English market, hence its name, see 
 
 CCL1. Screen. 
 
 which, with the laces surrounding it on the same leaf of the screen, illustrate 
 all the varieties of fine Flemish laces, with the exception of 
 
 CCXLVIL Screen, 
 
 which is old Devonsire edging, copied from Trolle kant 
 
 CCLIX. Screen. 
 
 which is Cretan lace and 
 
 CCLXI. CCLXIII. Cases 
 
 of which CCLXI. is machine-made imitation of old Brussels, and CCLXIII. 
 of old Mechlin placed with the other laces for comparison, The city of Brus- 
 sels has been able, until this past year, to hold the dominant position in the 
 lace trade despite the enormous size of Paris and London, but rumours from 
 Belgium announce that she cannot continue to stand the competition of the 
 rest of the world, because her work-women are paid much more than those 
 of other nations who have learned the secrets of her art. 
 Queen Margaret exhibits in Flanders laces: 
 
 MXXV. Royal lace. 
 A superb flounce made at Brinche. 
 
 MXXI. Royal laces. 
 A large bed spread, strewn with flowers and butterflies in Flanders Point. 
 
 MXXII. Roj-al laces. 
 
 A scarf of Brussels needle Point. 
 
117 
 
 MXXI1I. Royal laces. 
 
 A cap of Point d'Angleterre. 
 
 MXX1V. Royal laces. 
 
 A deep flounce that matches the Flanders bed-spread, with butterflies and 
 flowers 
 
 MXXXL, MXXV1I. Royal laces. 
 Trimming for a costume in the style of a Bertha, and lace to natch. 
 
 MXXVI1I. Royal laces. 
 A Barbe of old rococo Flanders lace, sometimes called Brabant point. 
 
 MXXIX. Royal laces. 
 
 A pair of lappets. 
 
 MXXX. Royal laces. 
 
 An edging. 
 
 Other ladies exhibit in Point d'Angleterre and Flanders Point : 
 C I 'III. Cases. 
 
 A fine scarf with Apollo represented playing on the lyre and surrounded by 
 birds. XVII Century Flanders Point. 
 
 CX. Cases. 
 
 A deep flounce with birds of Paradise and swans in Flanders point, belonging 
 to the XVIII Century. 
 
 CXI. Cases. 
 
 A narrower flounce to match. 
 
 XCIL, XC. Cases. 
 Trimmings of Point d'Angleterre. 
 
118 
 
 CLV1II. Cases. 
 Ditto belonging to Baroness Treves. 
 
 CCII. Cases. 
 Ditto belonging to Countess Paolucci 
 CCVI. Cases. 
 
 A deep flounce with double heading of applique Point d'Angleterre specially 
 made at Brussels for the Queen of Westphalia to wear at the coronation 
 of the Emperor Napoleon the First, and worked with the arms of that 
 kingdom. This piece of lace was presented by Prince Jerome Bonaparte to 
 the Countess Maddalena Aldobrandini Papadopoli of Venice. 
 
 CCCLX. Cases. 
 A flounce in Point d'Angleterre. 
 
 CCCCXXXVL Cases. 
 Lappets in old Brussels pillow lace. 
 
 DXVIII. Cases. 
 
 A veil in Point d'Angleterre with a design of holly leaves and berries ; made 
 in the beginning of this century. 
 
 DXX. Cases. 
 
 Two lappets in Point d'Angleterre, belonging to Marchioness Grimaldi, of Bologna. 
 
 DLV11I. Cases. 
 A flounce of very graceful design. 
 
 DLXXII. Cases. 
 
 A veil in Brussels Point. 
 
 DLXXIII.-DLXXX. Cases. 
 
 Two trimmings in Point d'Angleterre. 
 
119 
 
 DCXX1V. Cases. 
 
 A jabot ditto. 
 
 CCXX. Cases. 
 
 A baptismal veil, adorned with Empire figures executed in Point d'Angleterre, 
 wich belonged to Queen Carolina of Naples, sister of Napoleon and wife of 
 Murat; inherited from her by her great-grand daughter Countess Guerini 
 Pepoli of Bologna. 
 
 CCCXC1V., CCCXCV1 , CCCCLII. Cases. 
 
 The cobweb laces CCCXCIV., CCCXCVL, CCCCLII. etc. were made 
 at Binche. The delicate narrow flowered flounces and ruffles, dear to the 
 heart of graceful Marie Antoinette, are from Malines. 
 
 The fine and solid Valenciennes were made at Ypres and elsewhere. 
 From Bruges came the soft silk and thread laces in simple, graceful designs 
 such as: 
 
 CCCLXIL, CXXX. Cases. 
 as also the beautiful Flanders chain lace 
 
 CCXLII. Cases. 
 
 belonging to Marchesa Fianetta Doria, Directress for Genoa and one of the 
 Queen's Ladies of Honour. 
 
 At Antwerp special laces were adopted, such as the Troll Kant, 
 
 CCCCXXXV11I. Cases. 
 
 and the Potten Kant of which examples are also exhibited, which were suited 
 to the plaited caps of the Dutch housewives of high and low degree; and 
 so on and on through a long list, containing the less celebrated but al- 
 ways pretty laces manufactured for home consumption, or for expor- 
 tation in vast quantities to England, France, Italy and above all to Spain. 
 Those in guipure with a broad bold design were made in the north and in 
 the province of Hainault, and resemble this same quality of lace made at 
 Genoa and Milan, see : 
 
120 
 
 CIV., CXX. Cases. 
 
 The pretty rococo designs came from Brabant and the centre, and were 
 so perfectly reproduced in northern Italy, where they were very much ap- 
 preciated, that they cannot be distinguised from each other, see: 
 
 CCLXVIIL, CCCLXV1IL, CCCCLXXIV , CCCCLXXX., 
 CCCCXCV11I. Cases. 
 
 and 
 
 CCCXXV1L, CLXXV1L, CCXXI1L Screen 
 
 made in Friuli. 
 
 These laces have all been described in the introduction, and the fre- 
 quent reproduction of the simpler qualities, combined with the immense 
 quantities of the finer qualities which are still treasured in Italy, are illustra- 
 tions of the esteem which Flanders laces have always enjoyed there. There are 
 Italian bobbin laces which are worthy of being placed beside the beautiful 
 needle points above described, and the pillow laces are all artistic and have 
 a style of their own; they originally served as models for the early Flanders 
 laces, but are quite different from the fairy products belonging to the latter 
 half of the Seventeenth and to the Eighteenth Century which we have been 
 passing in review. They are suited to the rich, stately type of Italian woman- 
 hood personified in the Roman matron, draped in deep hued velvets and 
 heavy satins; they are suited to the solemn services and rich decorations of 
 Basilicas frescoed by Giotto, and of altars from which the pure madonnas 
 painted by Raphael calmly gaze down on us. 
 
 The Italian designs for laces never represented pastorals, etc., and so were 
 specially adapted for church linen and vestments as well as for personal and 
 household decoration. 
 
 Milanese Point, like Venetian Guipure, originated in Passement, and 
 at the end of the Sixteenth Century rapidly developed into a superb lace. 
 The lace made in the Abruzzi resembles the Milanese lace which is made 
 with a mesh ground, whereas the Milanese and Genoese guipures are in- 
 distinguishable; but all pieces of antique guipure having a floreate design 
 are ascribed to Milan, and all those composed of arabesques to Genoa. 
 
 Queen Margaret exhibits two pieces of Milanese point : 
 
 MXXXI. Royal laces. 
 Is a deep flounce of the finest quality with vases and lambroquins, and 
 
121 
 
 CCCLXLVI. Cases. 
 
 Is a pattina. 
 
 MXXXIl Royal laces 
 
 is a trimming of fine quality. 
 
 Other Ladies have contributed the following Milanese laces: 
 
 CCXXVI. Cases. 
 
 Is a flounce in flower design, 
 
 CCLXIl Cases. 
 
 Is a flounce, ditto. 
 
 CCLXXXIV. Cases. 
 Is a square Sixteenth Century collar. 
 
 CCCCVI. Cases. 
 
 a fine flounce exhibited by Countess Agostini Venerosa della Seta Directress 
 at Pisa. 
 
 CCCCXIV. Cases. 
 
 a trimming. 
 
 DLXXXVIJI. Cases. 
 
 a Flounce and several other pieces and samples, among others 
 
 CXXVIL, CLVIl, CCW, CCXIII., CCCLXXV., CCXXXV. Screen. 
 
 The following are Neapolitan laces of the quality known as old 
 Abruzzi, so named fron the mountainous district between Rome and Naples 
 in which they were manufactured and in which a large production of infe- 
 rior laces continues, only requiring the breath of vivifyng commerce to re- 
 pristinate them in their original beauty: 
 
 CCXVJII. Cases 
 
 is a flounce with flowers issuing from bases in a conventional design of the 
 time of Louis XIV, belongs to the Countess Papadopoli. 
 
 16 
 
122 
 
 CCCXCVI1L Cases 
 
 is a beautiful fine piece of the same lace which was made during the Six- 
 teenth Century in a Convent destroyed by the ill-famed Marchese Ruffo. 
 
 CCCCIV. Cases. 
 
 is a flounce of a very fine quality, exhibited under the Patronage of the 
 Countess Agostini della Seta. 
 
 CCCXXX I III. Cases. 
 
 is a piece of lace bought in Spain; the design consists of the imperial Au- 
 strian double headed Eagle of the time of Charles the V, and of a Marquis's 
 coronet, as this Emperor conceded as a great distinction and mark of special 
 favour, the privilege of bearing the imperial arms, so often repeated in the 
 design books of the Sixteenth Century, to several Italian as well as Spanish 
 families. 
 
 CCIX., CCXIX., CCXXIX. Screen. 
 
 are examples of this lace made in Naples; and 
 
 CCXV., CCXVIL, CCXXV1L, CCLXXX1X. Screen,, 
 
 of the same made in the Abruzzi. Black silk laces such as CCLXXXIX. 
 were made at Ischia. Much Abruzzi lace was formerly made at Offida in the 
 Marche, as also a kind of Blonde in thread, 
 
 CCLXXIV. Cases. 
 
 and all the ordinary antique household laces, as in every province of Italy. 
 Besides the guipures with coarse cords , a lace resembling the Milanese 
 Guipure was made in Venice. 
 
 DXV. CCCVIII. Cases. 
 
 DXVIII. is a surplice trimmed with an antique piece of the trefoil design 
 which was universally made in Friuli in the Eighteenth Century, and CCCXLVIII. 
 is an exact reproduction of the same design made by a clever old Venetian 
 lace maker named Victoria Tranquilli, who also reproduces " Blondes „ in 
 perfection. 
 
123 
 
 All the ordinary laces which were made elsewhere in Italy were also 
 produced in Friuli, as well as a special quality resembling old Swedish and 
 Danish lace, see 
 
 CLXXXV1I. Screen, 
 
 and 
 
 CHI, CCCLXXX., CCCCLXIV., DCLX. Cases. 
 
 At Pelestrina and Chioggia, near Venice, there was such a large production 
 of torchon lace that Pelestrina divides with Cantu the honour of having 
 this quality of lace called by its name, while Chioggia is identified with 
 a certain starred mesh, 
 
 CXXXI. Screen., CCCCX. Cases 
 
 which is used with great effect even in the finest of Belgian Pillow laces ; 
 there is much variety in these simple old laces, as well as of appropriateness 
 of design to the uses for which they were destined ; many examples of 
 them are exhibited on the screen and in the cases. The following 
 
 CCCXXXVl Cases, 
 
 is a table-cover composed entirely of samples of the antique Venetian laces; 
 it belongs to M.™ Bronson who also sends a complete collection of samples of 
 the ordinary modern laces made at Pelestrina and the other Islands round Venice. 
 
 The Ligurian or Genoese guipures have four entirely distinctive cha- 
 racters. The first, or I Iispano-moresque and Maltese variety has been exam- 
 ined with the gothic laces, as also another consisting of the Vermicelli 
 lace from Rapallo and Santa Marguerita. A third is dentical with Milanese 
 guipure, see samples 
 
 CXXIIL, CXXV., CXLl, CLI.y CCL, CCCLXXVII. Screen. 
 CCCLXX., CCCLXXIV. CCCXC, CCCXC1I. Cases. 
 
 The fourth is different from all the other varieties of lace and is 
 called " fugio, „ (I fly) as it is very soft and airy. It is an adaptation of 
 guipure-like ribbons of weaving, with open work 'variations, held together 
 by very few bars, the arabesques being combined in such a manner as 
 frequently to touch and so to obviate the need of extraneous supports, see 
 
 CCCXXXJII. Screen : 
 
124 
 
 Contessa Pignone Gambararo of Genoa sends two beautiful flounces, 
 CCXLVL, CCL. Cases, 
 
 of*this lace; 
 
 CCCCV11I. Cases. 
 is another flounce of the same, and 
 
 CCCCXCVJ. Cases. 
 
 and many other examples of it are to he found in the cases. 
 
 With the exception of the Blondes, we have. now passed in review 
 all the laces of Italy. These soft alluring, glistening, clinging tissues were 
 ever beloved by the daughters of Andalusia, who remained faithful to them 
 when the fickle fashions of France, which had created them in the Seven- 
 teenth Century, abandoned them in the Eighteenth, and in consequence, these 
 laces when re-presented to the world were known by the name of the coun- 
 try of their adoption as Spanish Blondes. 
 
 The usual white and colored blondes with metal introduced, lack that 
 softness of material and grace of design which, combined with durability, 
 are the chief attractions of lace, see 
 
 CCCCXL1V., CCCCXLVL Cases. 
 
 and DXC. cases, but some of these hybrid laces compensate by their splen- 
 dour for the defects of their less artistic sisters. Of these Lady Layard exhi- 
 bits a superb collection made during her sojourn in Spain: 
 
 CCCXLVI. A. B. Cases. 
 
 is a piece of antique blond, and with it is placed a modern copy of it 
 made, as also the following copies of other laces, by Vittoria Tranquilla of 
 Venice. 
 
 CCCL. Cases. 
 is a Rose Blonde, trimming, in white and silver. 
 
 CCCL1I. Cases. 
 
 is a blonde scarf worked in white and silver in a design of the Rose, Sham- 
 rock and Thistle which are the emblems of great Britain and Ireland. 
 
 CCCLIV. Cases. 
 
 is a blonde scarf in white and gold 
 
125 
 
 CCCLVI. Cases. 
 is a blonde bertha in white and silver. 
 
 CCCL VIII. Cases. 
 
 is a white and silver blonde trimming. Other ladies exhibit blondes composed 
 entriely of white silk, which were the rage in Italy under the Empire. 
 
 DLXXXIl Cases. 
 
 is an entire Empire costume with Mantilla composed of this lace, belonging 
 to the Countess Grabinska of Bologna. 
 
 DLXXXIV. Cases. 
 
 is another costume of the same which was worn by princess Maria Malvezzi 
 Hercolani, Dame of the Croce Stellata and Lady in Waiting at the Vice- 
 regal Court of Prince Eugene Heauharnais in Milan. 
 
 DXXXVL, 1)XC. Cases. 
 
 Are flounces, of white Blonde, worked with a honey-combed ground. 
 These soft silk blondes with their supple folds and great splashes of reflected 
 light have a certain attraction, and in any case Italian hearts owe them a 
 deep debt of gratitude, for they alone carried the traditions of lace making 
 among the Venetian, Ligurian and Cantuese women across the sad years of 
 overwhelming taxation and foreign aggression which for Italy composed the 
 first half of the Nineteenth Century. These blondes of inferior quality kept 
 the bobbins flying, and though there was no demand for point laces, the 
 mending of those belonging to the Cardinals and Churches kept the needle 
 at work according to the traditions of the age, and that sufficed as a found- 
 ation for the intelligent revivaf which began on the Ligurian coast, about 
 1848. w hh the production of a pretty lace resembling Points de Malines and 
 de Lille well suited to the style of costume then worn, see 
 
 CCLXXX., CCCCX1L, CCCCXXIL. CCCCXXX1L, DXl'I. Cases. 
 a cape, and 
 
 DXl'I. Cases. 
 
 a flounce belonging to the Marchcsa Cavriani. 
 
 This, when the fashion changed, was followed by the copying, about 
 Genoa and at Cantii, of the white and black Brussels laces of which 
 
126 
 
 CCL1Y. Cases. 
 
 is the first piece executed at Santa Marguerita, in 1868, for the Countess 
 Pignone Gambero ; these laces required great exactness and re-developed 
 the intelligence and ability of the work-women, so that if the demand in- 
 crease in proportion to the hopes of the clever lace-makers and to the good 
 will and necessity of the poorer classes, Italy will, in the Twentieth Cen- 
 tury again become what she was in the Sixteenth, the guiding genius of 
 good taste in this art and the purveyor of the most truly beautiful laces. 
 
 For though greater regularity may be found in the coarse laces of 
 other countries than exists in those of Italy, even the most ordinary of her 
 bobbin laces possesses, in company with her unrivalled needle laces, the 
 quality of true artistic sentiment when the designers are allowed to fol- 
 low the old traditions which gives them the prestige of originality, for 
 they are not modern lace, this term, as distinguised from that of an- 
 tique lace, being simply synonymous with mechanical perfection. The 
 finest modern hand-made lace is composed of perfectly even, machine- 
 spun silk, thread, or cotton, dyed a beautiful black, bleached to a dead 
 white, or coloured a brilliant cream, worked, with great manual dexterity, 
 in nicely shaded designs copied from dravings of real birds, butterflies, 
 flowers and fruits, interspersed with meaningless scrollwork and cast iron 
 devices which are vulgar even on cafe pavillions. These component parts are 
 all worked separately, one woman making the cast-iron devices, another 
 all the roses, another all the butterflies, etc., so as to obtain individual 
 perfection at the sacrifice of artistic completeness, for no two human beings 
 can execute work exactly similar. These pieces are then united with per- 
 fect nicety, carefully pressed, and a quality of work is placed upon the 
 market which has no individuality and can be imitated by machinery, and 
 no one but the starving lace-maker thus deprived of her means for earn- 
 ning a livelihood is the loser. 
 
 Italian laces makers, as will be seen from the reproductions of old 
 designs exhibited in the Italian Section both in the Woman's Building and in 
 the Palace of Liberal Arts, have an indestructible sentiment of art and are 
 capable of producing antique lace, with all its rich, inimitable forms and rich 
 soft tones, but in strong, new thread and in unlimited quantity with the 
 consequent lowness of price necessary to suit the present requirements of 
 artistic homes; but alas, beside the evidences of what can he done, are 
 placed pieces of laces which prove the lack of intelligent guidance, and the 
 ignorance of poor, neglected workwomen who toil unceasingly, striving 
 to follow foreign fashions which are already extinct, aping the ever chang- 
 ing productions "of great factories in flimsy, worthless imitations copied with 
 defective, puerile drawing, instead of reproducing the lace of their own 
 old house-hold linen, or that before which they kneel every Sunday in 
 church, or is brought them by their priest from time to time to be mended, 
 
127 
 
 and which dealers seek to buy at any price to sell again in countries 
 were it is appreciated : Until now they have neglected their opportunities, 
 as they themselves have been neglected; but a new era has dawned for 
 the art life of the lower classes: in each great city and industrial centre 
 schools for artistic and manual training have been opened, and in those for 
 girls decorative drawing and lace making are ewery where taught ; whereas 
 even in small villages in the more advanced provinces industrial night schools 
 for the instruction of the artisan and the poorest peasant alike are everywhere 
 springing up. A sunny day is dawning for the industries of Italy, the morn- 
 ing glow of which will be found reflected in the objects mentioned in the 
 following pages, the bright star which has long risen for lace-making being 
 the Cooperative School at Burano. 
 
Pmp V. 
 
 PoDmt Qatt, its makers mtb its framing. 
 
 The Italian Section containing the Historical lace exhibit here de- 
 scribed, is situated near the southwestern entrance to the woman's building 
 in the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, all the buildings of which 
 are designed in the style of the Italian Renaissance in honour of the Great 
 Explorer, the Fourth Centenary of whose discovery of two continents this 
 exhibition has been organized to celebrate. The Italian Directresses there- 
 fore considered it appropriate to furnish their Section, which is entirely oc- 
 cupied by the Lace exhibit, in the prevailing style, and their department in 
 consequence represents an Italian Sala or salon of the Sixteenth Century, the 
 cases destined for the rococo laces alone being designed to suit their contents. 
 The artist who seconded the ladies, and has furnished so beautiful a framing 
 for the art treasures sent across the seas, is Cavaliere Valentino Panciero 
 Besarel of Venice, an Artist of the type of the same period with the de- 
 signs he creates, as the Italian Renaissance is bred in his bones. Son of a 
 clever wood carver who lived up to the traditions of Venetian Art although 
 he passed all his life in the little village of Zoldo, among the first spurs of 
 the Dolomites, those glorious Italian Alps which have ever been fruitful in 
 artists, Panciero Besarel from his childhood determined to follow the calling 
 of his father and his father's ancestors whilst climbing the heights of art, 
 ever faithfully following in the footsteps of Andrea Brustolon, the greatest of 
 Venetian wood carvers. Like many an American millionaire, like all the 
 best artists of the Sixteenth Century, he began life by working at the hard- 
 est and most menial accessories of his profession, struggling with every 
 nerve to obtain the pittance which would suffice to maintain him while 
 studying at the School of Design in Venice, to change his aspirations into 
 an art, and he succeeded. Rut the love of the beautiful and the good, the 
 striving for ever after an unattainable ideal are sure to breed the noble sen- 
 timent of patriotism which is so often the forerunher of persecution and 
 even martyrdom, and this above all in Italy, the country whose atmosphere 
 is saturated with beauty, poetry, and art. Strangers love to linger there and ever 
 return, trying to call the land their own, while liberty and its country is 
 the dominant passion of the Italian heart. So when usurping Austria sought 
 to lure the young Besarel with offers of high honours and rich emoluments to 
 
 17 
 
130 
 
 Vienna he turned a deaf ear, and sent his work to the exhibition at Flo- 
 rence, where his faithfulness and talent were rewarded by a medal and sales 
 to the amount of 600O francs which procured him fresh persecution as he 
 devoted the entire sum to assisting his unhappy countrynen in emigrating 
 from under the foreign rule. In 1873, however, well merited success crowned 
 his efforts, for his now established reputation obtained for him a large order 
 from the Prince of Wales, and since that period he has received gold me- 
 dals at all the expositions in which he has taken part, has been knighted, and 
 is the recipient of honours from the Royal Houses of Austria, England, and 
 Italy, and from the French Republic. He has always remained the same 
 simple child of nature and of art, although his curly locks have been bleached 
 by time and by a terrible accident which deprived him of three fingers of his 
 right hand, which for all that did not lose its cunning. In the spacious salons 
 of the palace on the grand Canal, which are crowded with the children of 
 his hand and imagination, he is visited yearly by Royalty, Ambassadors, 
 and the first of Italy, and Her Majesty Queen Margaret orders of him the 
 artistic furniture and bibelots with which she loves to surround herself, and 
 never stays in Venice without visiting his studio. The lady patronesses who 
 know him look upon him as a friend, and therefore naturally turned to 
 him as one who would do honour to the faith reposed in his generosity 
 and good taste. His pretty daughter trips about the place with all the 
 charm of an old time Venetian maiden, and her smile is as attractive as 
 that of the delicious little cupids she sculptures; for this demure young lady, 
 who cannot count twenty summers, has inherited her father's talent and it is 
 to her clever hands we owe the modelling of the lace maker, who, peace- 
 fully beneath the great crucifix carved by the Cavaliere, sits dressed completely 
 in clothes the material of which was grown, spun, woven and sewed by the 
 industrious peasants of Friuli (*). Casa Besarel forms a charming household, 
 and while 1 write the words of a cultured American, uttered as she descended 
 the worn marble steps and entered the gondola which was floating on the lazy 
 blue waters of the grand canal, ring in my memory, " Thank you, you have 
 
 (*) The flax used for the underwear worn by this lay figure was cultivated and spun by 
 Maria Pazzarini, aged 20, of the village of Ceresets and cost 5o cents. 
 
 The lace was made at the school of Fagana by a girl of thirteen years named Giudita 
 Lestani, and cost 20 cents. 
 
 The dress is composed of silk refuse from the cultivation of silk worms at Brazzh, and is 
 used to make home-spun hunting suits and most durable garments by the peasants. 
 
 The carding, spinning, dying and weaving of the dress, and the furnishing of the necessary 
 findings cost Sll 3.5o and is all the work of Armellina Zanor, aged about 23. 
 
 The same young woman also wove the shirt and chemise for Sll 1.80, the sewing of which 
 was done by Amalia Cervezzo of Fagagna for 35 cents; she also made the picturesque rag and 
 cord slippers worn by the peasants in the house, the entire material and execution of which cost 
 cents. 30. 
 
 The woollen stockings are made from the wool of sheep belonging to the Michelet family 
 
131 
 
 not only showed me the most artistic carving I have ever seen, but you have 
 taken me back into the Venice of the middle ages; I felt, it almost sacrilege 
 to take any thing from where it stood, for all seemed part of a picture, and 
 so unshoplike „ ; alas the only fault of Bcsarel is that he is an artist and " un- 
 shoplike, „ and will leave his children richer in honours than in money, form- 
 ing a great contrast with many of the modern " Merchants of Venice who go 
 so far in their chase for foreign gold as to pay the gondoliers, couriers 
 and guides who conduct wealthy strangers to their doors. 
 
 Signorina Besarel is not the only young Italian girl who has contri- 
 buted her work to grace our exhibit. Signorina Costa of Rome, the daughter 
 of one of the Lady patronesses, has spent many busy hours over the painting 
 in Italian tempora of the Renaissance Garland of flowers which forms the 
 frieze about the sala, whilst Signorina Celotti, of Udine, worked upon the 
 old tapestry painting of the album to contain the example of the Brazza 
 Lace school for which she has a kindly affection ; and as if goodness and 
 beauty were synonymous all three of these industrious girls are so pretty that 
 it is only a pity their clever work cannot be rendered still more attractive 
 by their photographs. 
 
 The graceful wrought iron gate, transparent as a curtain in black gui- 
 pure, through which the visitor gains admittance to the Italian Section, as 
 well as the Album full of beautiful designs for antique wrought iron objects, 
 and those made in chiselled metal are the handiwork of Antonia Lora of Tris- 
 sino, another typical Italian Artist whose father, a carrier between this vil- 
 lage and Vicenza, apprenticed his son at eighteen years of age to a wood 
 carver of that city whence he soon moved to Verona, and finally, attracted by 
 its art traditions to Venice, where he maintained himself for twelve years 
 by hard work whilst he studied design at the Academy and perfected him- 
 self in niello (one metal incrusted with another) and the lost art of casting 
 a cire perdue, so that Guggenheim, Richetti, and all the merchants of anti- 
 quities found constant use for his talent. 
 
 of Fagagna, and was combed, carded, spun, dyed and knit into stockings by Angela Michelet, aged 
 17, who also made the garter customary in her village; this all cost cents. 5o. 
 
 The wooden shoes called Xoccoli are hind-made by the men of the family ; those exhi- 
 bited were made by Giuseppe Peres of Fagagna for 30 cents, the work in wood costing 10 cents 
 and that in leather 20 cents. 
 
 The peasants buy their aprons and kerchiefs unless they make them in crochet work, and 
 these form the great objects of luxury in their costume, costing in all, of a quality such as is 
 exhibited, about Sll 3. The lace on the apron was made by Erncsta Schirati of Fagagna, aged thir- 
 teen, and cost Sll 60 cents, so that the entire sunday outfit of a well-to-do peasant made in the 
 most durable of materials amounts to the value of about eleven dollars, but it costs them less, 
 as much of it is made of unsaleable material prepared at home at odd moments. The lace over 
 which the figure is represented as busied, was made and mounted on the pillow by the peasant 
 girl Italia Canciani, aged thirteen, after ten months' inslruction in the school of Brazza, and every- 
 thing connected with the figure has been produced by peasants whose families frequent this school 
 or its branches established in the neighbouring villages. 
 
132 
 
 The green silk, the soft lustre of which adds beauty to the laces within 
 the antique carved furniture, and causes those of Her Majesty to appear 
 like lacy white caps and foam upon the beautifully tinted naves of the Me- 
 diterranean, was spun, dyed, and woven entirely by women in the silk and 
 damask manufactory of Signor Domenico Reisere, Figlio, founded in 1848 in 
 Udine, who also exhibits an album containing a few samples of his rich 
 damasks and velvets, exact reproductions of the celebrated antique Venetian 
 silks, and which are sold as they come from the loom, to adorn our drawing 
 rooms, without any preparatory dressing, and are therefore like those which 
 have survived the wear of centuries, quite indistructible. During this time he 
 also modelled the bronze basrelief erected in Venice to the memory of Sirtori, 
 Garibaldi's Aide de Camp, and carried carried off prizes at the Universal Expo- 
 sitions of Vienna, London etc., as well as in the National Exposition. The 
 beautiful gates in wrought iron of the Museum at Turin are his handi- 
 work, as well as others in London, Odessa, Frankfort, Berlin, and even in 
 the United States; while for an amateur of Paris he has executed a perfect 
 copy of those of the renowned monument of the Scaligeri in Verona. His 
 work in niello is equally pure in design and beautiful in execution, and who- 
 ever visits Vicenza and finds attraction in the traditions of the life of the 
 Middle Ages cannot but feel an interest in taking the pretty road out across 
 the laughing plains and the high bridge over the roaring Agno which leads to 
 an old-fashioned peasant house in a quaint court-yard full of cackling hens, and 
 with low, rough rooms out of which the family has heen crowded by the 
 products of the master's art. Antonio Lora in metal-work is like Besarel in 
 wood carving, an artist of the Renaissance, as were the great examples whose 
 work they seek to emulate, and both belong to a type which has survived 
 the hurry of the nineteenth Century in classic Italy alone, and if one wishes 
 to stand face to face with the life led by genius in the past, he need only 
 seek Besarel among his pupils in a remote corner of his palace on the 
 Grand Canal at Venice, or Antonio Lora in the simple smithy at Trissino, 
 frowned upon by the bleak, ruined castles of the proud Montecchios and 
 haughty Capulets which he told us once smiled on the loves of Romeo and 
 Juliet. Here, like his prototype Vulcan, this master of the anvil limps about 
 among his workmen helping them to twist the glowing iron tendrils into artistic 
 flowers, and into exquisite forms of lanterns, gates and balconies, products of 
 his creative genius which the great dealers in Bric-a-brac sell as treasured 
 remains of the Renaissance for triple the sum paid grudgingly to the artist. 
 
 Above the court yard, and behind the busy forge, rises a hill crowned 
 with superb gardens, terraces and green-houses, in the midst of which stands 
 the beautiful castle of Trissino, which forms the summer studio of Countess 
 Loredana di Porto, the most distinguished lady photographer in Italy, whose 
 works are known far and wide far their wonderful artistic grouping and 
 perfect execution, and have won for her the gold medal at the Internatio- 
 nal Exhibition of Photography in London, and elsewhere. 
 
133 
 
 Collection of Photographs. MMLI. 
 
 She exhibits 42 groups MMLI. which speak for themselves, and when 
 the best are offered, will our visitors complain of the restrictions which li- 
 mited space caused us to place on this branch of woman's work ? 
 
 The mother of this gifted lady, the Countess Bonin, another of the 
 Lady Patronesses who lives on the other side of Vicenza, favours an in- 
 dustry which saves from want the unoccupied of all the villages of the Seven 
 Communes, the inabitants of which are the descendants of the ferocious Cim- 
 brians who could boast of having routed two great armies composed of the 
 flower of Roman valour, and yielded at last to the effects of the climate, not 
 to the attacks of their disciplined enemy. 
 
 Albums from Marostico. MMLIIL, MMLI I '. 
 
 MMLIII. and MMLIV. are two Albums composed of samples of plaited 
 straw made in Marostico and in the remainder of these communes, where 
 all the women and girls, with infinite ingenuity and ceaseless industry, twirl 
 and plait straw instead of flax and hemp into laces which are afterwards 
 sewed together to form hats, or are exported to foreign countries where they 
 are much prized for their lightness and solidity. 
 
 Another Italian lady, the Marchesa Negrotti Passalacqua of Genoa 
 shows that she has inherited the talent of her ancestresses. 
 
 CCXXXIV., CCXXXVL, CCXXXriJI. Cases. 
 
 She exhibits a large table cover CCXXXIV. and the front of a gown 
 CCXXXVI. and CCXXXVI worked by herself alone in unbleached thread 
 in Punto Tagliato a fogliamc before which all must pause in admiration, and 
 realize that the poor lace maker, if only guided by such refinement and ar- 
 tistic talent as she possesses must produce superior work: and for this reason 
 we will turn to the schools, as it is in these lace makers are trained and 
 ladies seek to improve the work produce by cultivating the young girls. 
 
 These institutions arc divided into two distinct classes: those which 
 are organized as cooperative societies, the pupils continuing to work in or 
 for the school after their training has ceased, and enjoying an augmentation 
 or suffering a reduction of pay as the market fluctuates; and the merely in- 
 dustrial schools, which train the pupils for a fixed period, selling their 
 work to help to maintain the institution and instruct as many as possible, 
 the pupils once having left being forced to provide personally for the 
 sale of whatever they may produce. We will begin with those founded or 
 directed by the lady patronesses, the most important exhibitor bein^ 
 Burano School, which sends over ten thousand dollars' worth of lace to 
 Chicago. • 
 
134 
 
 The 400 industrious merry, laughing girls whose fingers gaily worked 
 these beautiful needle Laces while singing the sweet boat songs of Venice 
 are now sorrowful, and the whole school in silence, mourns, for the intel- 
 ligent, the good, the beautiful, the pious Countess Andriana Marcello who 
 for years had been its guardian angel, and whose last work for them, three 
 short months ago, was to plan with infinite care all the details for this 
 wonderful exhibition. The golden cord of her noble life has been snapped, 
 and she has been prematurely called to enjoy the reward of a life spent 
 for others. The echo of her dirge has scarcely died into silence, and the 
 ripples caused by the passing of her funeral across the lagune — which for 
 so many years gaily bore her to and from the school at Burano — are yet 
 breaking upon the shores of that mourning Island. 
 
 The emotion of one who for the past six months worked daily, guided 
 by her experience and noble rectitude, and who in turning to each branch 
 of this exhibit finds proofs of her activity, is such that no words can express, 
 but the visitor who gazes on the sweet loveliness contained in the simple 
 black velvet frame, placed near her beloved laces, will realize all that Her 
 Majesty Queen Margaret, the Committee of Directresses, the school of Burano 
 and Italian womanhood have lost. It was Paolo Fambri who first thought of 
 raising the poor fisher-folk out of their squalor, rendered deadly by the fearful 
 winter of 1872, when the frozen lagoons presented a stony breast on which 
 they beat in vain for bread. He tried having fishing nets made, but they had 
 enough of these already, and other fishing communities made their own, and 
 so his kindly heart caused him to revert to the talent for lace-making which 
 lingered among the people, and seeking out old Cencia Scarparola he found 
 the embodiment of the tradition and decided to revive the art. The Patricians 
 of Venice seconded him with sympathy and money, and among them he 
 chose two of the noblest as of the most beautiful, both since ladies of ho- 
 nour to the Queen, both patronesses of this new enterprise to carry across 
 the Seas the work of these girls redeemed from misery by their efforts. The 
 Princess Nana Giovanelli, with her long absences from Venice could not carry 
 on the work; The young widowed Countess Andriana Marcello saw in it 
 the realization of a dream of her noble husband's and threw herself heart 
 and soul into the work. God has blessed her faithfulness, and Burano with 
 its 6000 inhabitants is now bright, prosperous and contented, and has drown- 
 ed the memory of the horrors of 1872 in the tender, protecting smile of 
 the Countess Andriana, but she is gone for ever, and it depends upon all 
 who love noble, untiring devotion to carry on the work which she has 
 founded, and so perfectly organized that its only necessity is to sell, and 
 that we, out of our abundance, should buy for our adornment rather the 
 artistic work of these intelligently-guided work-women than machine-made 
 or less artistic lace. 
 
 All of the designs of Burano lace are taken from the best antique mo- 
 dels, and Her Majesty — who as Princes Margherita di Savoia accepted the 
 
135 
 
 Honorary Presidency of the school — has allowed the superb Crown laces to 
 be copied there, and entrusts them to no other hands for repairs. For this rea- 
 son, and because they can brave the most rigid comparison, these laces are 
 placed near those of her Majesty, and each one copied from a Royal lace is 
 so marked. The beautiful bridal veil — which alone we have space to mention 
 here — is copied from the historical Argentan flounce given by Napoleon 
 the first to Cardinal Retz, and design N.° V, is copied from the superb Royal 
 piece of Rezzonico lace in Venetian Point which has been reduplicated for 
 crowned heads to present to Royal brides. 
 
 Coccolia School. MMXVII. 
 
 Another cooperative school , but younger and much smaller, was 
 founded in 1884 by a lady patroness, Countess Maria Pasolini, at Coccolia in 
 her vast possessions in Romagna. This property is situated near the pictur- 
 esque historical town of Ravenna — of which she sends a collection of photo- 
 graphs — where lie the ashes of the immortal Dante, and in which for many 
 years lingered the sweet, inspired and discontented Byron whose happiest 
 hours were spent in adored and adoring Italy. The cultivation of the fer- 
 tile plains forming the surrounding Province of Romagna, the inhabitants 
 of which are a sturdy indipendent race, is conducted on the system called 
 ma\\adria, the proprietor furnishing the land and houses, the peasant the 
 cultivation, and the two equally dividing the profits. The population increases 
 rapidly and the superfluous members of the family must seek occupation 
 by emigrating to some other farm or become labourers. The men have there- 
 fore organized cooperative societies which undertake important contracts in 
 other provinces and in neighbouring nations, and these are executed with ra- 
 pidity and exactness to the satisfaction of those who employ them and to the 
 mutual benefit of all parties concerned, Countess Pasolini, who is as in- 
 telligent and active as she is charitable, has thoroughly studied the econo- 
 mic questions of her surroundings, and has published the result of her 
 observations in several pamphlets which have been reprinted in the first 
 periodicals and found so important by French economists as to deserve 
 translation, being considered invaluable authorities for consultation on this 
 subject. The Countess observed that the weak point of the whole system was 
 the disoccupied life led by the women and girls belonging to the families 
 of the labourers. There are no factories around Ravenna in which to employ 
 them, and in this day of machine-made stuffs there is no economy to be 
 found in home spinning and weaving unless the first material is produced 
 on the farm, and so the Countess decided on founding a lace school for 
 these women, permitting them to work at home as soon as they become 
 proficient in the execution of the finer laces, which as they share the artistic 
 temperament of the Italian race, they learn to make with great facility, and 
 the products of their industry, copied from antique designs, are worthy of 
 
136 
 
 the exquisite vellum album MMXVII., and the rich satin leaves on which their 
 noble hearted directress has placed them. The school of Coccolia deserves 
 encouragement, and besides its album exhibits all too few pieces of its beau- 
 tiful work, preferring to execute the complicated designs in filling orders to 
 running the risk of having expensive laces left long unsold. 
 
 Bra" { a School. MMXX. 
 
 A still younger school is that under my direction at Brazza, near 
 Udine in the province of Friuli; it was founded September 8 th 189 1 * at a 
 small show of peasant products and industries held at our country home 
 by the seven communes which surround it, with the object of developing 
 the small household industries and thereby forming means of accessory oc- 
 cupation and emolument for the large peasant families during the long winter 
 when the ground is frozen or snow bound. Six girls, of which four remain 
 among the best workers of the school, had been personally instructed by 
 me in the rudiments of the art for only ten days, and did such justice to 
 their intelligent natures and short training whilst working before the visitors 
 that the vast public remained enthralled and could not be persuaded to move 
 on, and the Jury of the exhibition decided that this handicraft was adapted 
 to the requirements and circumstances of this part of the Province. Three 
 schools have been opened in quick succession symbolized in the trefoil or clo- 
 ver leaf chosen as the trade mark for their products; a fourth small leaf is 
 budding which promises to bring the proverbial good luck if only the chil- 
 dren continue good and industrious, and the public be lenient to their defects. 
 The oldest of the baby schools has scarcely doffed its swaddling clothes, 
 though brave and sturdy, for on the anniversary of its first birthday the 
 precocious infant, with its sisters, had a hundred pairs of hands at work at 
 the peasant show at Fagagna in 1892, received a diploma for merit and 
 good conduct, and many of the little hands closed over small pecuniary pri- 
 zes. In fact the infant developes with such unheard of rapidity and consumes 
 such larges quantities of pins, thread and bobbins, upon which indigestible 
 articles it thrives, that it quite frightens its foster mother who must appeal 
 to all the friends of honest industry to buy the products, so that a lack of 
 plenty of fresh food, thread, pins etc. may not stunt the child in its happy 
 growth. The girls who attend the school vary in age from seven to twenty, and 
 when they are seen twirling the bobbins and merrily singing in chorus the 
 musical snatches of Friuli, or seated under the great chestnut trees of the 
 park, eating their frugal meal which they bring with them in neat baskets, 
 or romping across the lawns, the heart involuntarily exclains, " God bless 
 them, and send the work to their willing hands, and to those of their children 
 and children's children, that they may never be raised for wrong doing through 
 dire necessity or lack of work. „ For some of these girls are orphans or 
 
137 
 
 lame or otherwise deformed or miserable, and on the slender threads wound 
 about their bobbins, hangs their whole means of honest existence. 
 
 The Brazza schools are conducted on the principles of a sweepstakes, 
 each one being rewarded according to her deserts, and the work is paid for 
 by the piece, the prices fluctuating according to the amount that can be re- 
 alized by its sale, the standard taken being the wholesale Paris market; new 
 and original designs command naturally a higher price than more hackneyed 
 ones. At the end of each year prizes arc distributed to the most regular, best 
 and cleverest workers of each separate school, and there is a grand prize for the 
 first among all the schools; but, like in a race among young colts, the last 
 sometimes carries off the honours, as she suddenly blooms out into an artist 
 of the bobbin to the joy and surprise of every one, and most of all of herself. 
 The schools of Brazza exhibit a large album, MMXX, and a quantity of the 
 work done by the girls, mounted into objects for household use either by 
 the girls themselves or by their seamstress sisters — who are peasants also. 
 > — Pleading the excuse of a parent's Loquacity, let me pass on to the Charitable 
 Institutions and Industrial schools which exhibit, and first among which ranks 
 the Institution of the SS. Ecce Homo at Naples, for its size and because se- 
 veral of the Lady Patronesses are on its board of Direction. This institution, 
 which had lingered along as a sleepy refuge for indigent old women and 
 crippled children, sprang into terrible activity during the fearful Cholera 
 scourge of 1884. which swept away all the grown people of whole families 
 and left hundreds of hungry ragged orphans wandering about the streets. 
 Daily this institution, Christ-like in action as in name, gathered scores of the 
 little innocents under its fondling care, and the King, the government, and 
 the city helped in the good work so that to-day it contains 350 inmates and 
 instructs 280 day scholars, many of whom belong to the most miserable 
 class who come to its great industrial school rooms to learn different 
 trades suited to women, and arc strengthened in body by its nourishing 
 soups. 
 
 Album from Naples, MM XI I. A, B. 
 
 All kinds of laces are made there from the antique (see MMXII. A, B) 
 Valenciennes, Venetian Point, Cardiglia, Reticella, Torchon, Ncapolitan-Abruzzi 
 and Milan Point, fugio, and a wonderful new lace formed by copying the 
 exquisite gothic designs published by padre Pissicelii in the pahxographia of 
 Montecassino. 
 
 Reproductions of Reticella. MM XVI. A, B, C. 
 
 Other beautiful examples of cardiglia and reticella in exact reproduction 
 of the Antique arc here exhibited by Signora Enrica Franchetti of 68 Via 
 della Carita, Rome, who has been honoured by Her Majesty with orders for 
 the finest work. 
 
 18 
 
138 
 
 An Industrial school of which the Lady Patroness Countess Agostini 
 Venerosi della Seta is one of the most active directresses, is that of San 
 Ramiri at Pisa, which exhibits an Album MMI. in which the work is well 
 executed. 
 
 Album from Pisa. MMI. 
 
 This school was instituted in the middle of the last century by the 
 Grand Dukes of Tuscany to teach weaving to the girls of the poorest class, 
 but this industry, as well as that of straw plaiting met with no success, and 
 so it was turned gradually into an Industrial school in the modern sense 
 of the word, in which hand and machine knitting and sewing, the making 
 of artificial flowers and of needle and bobbin lace, decorative designing and em- 
 broidery, cooking, washing and the rudiments of education adapted to women 
 of humble extraction are taught. This metamorphosis into the existing type 
 of Italian Industrial schools was accomplised in 1879, a »d here, as in all of 
 these institutions, there are always more applications for admittance than 
 can be accepted, although there are about three hundred Pupils in constant 
 attendance and the maximum of instruction is concentrated into three years. 
 
 Bologna. MMXII1. 
 
 Schools establised on the same system are those of the Institution of 
 San Pelegrino at Bologna, which sends in MMXIIL, two beautiful examples 
 of its work in lace and Sicilian Trapunto. 
 
 The Educatorio of St. Paolo in Modena, of which Queen Margaret is 
 Patroness, sends an artistic and perfectly embroidered screen 
 
 Modena. MLI. 
 
 executed for Her Majesty by the girls, who enjoy the immense advantage of 
 artistic education under Count Gardini, and can embroider quickly and per- 
 fectly copies of any of the celebrated antique pieces of Italian work contained 
 in the collection of textiles in the Museum. 
 
 This collection has already been twice copied by them for German in- 
 dustrial schools, to the great advantage and instruction not only of the girls 
 who did the work, but of the hundreds of foreign children who could thus 
 profit by the unique possessions of the Modenese Museum in textile art. 
 
 Sardegna MMII. 
 
 On the Western Slopes of the great mountainous island of Sardegna, 
 which rises like an immense foot out of the Mediterrean, surrounded by a 
 shoal of smiling islets, is perched the picturesque city of Sassari, and here, 
 
139 
 
 in 183 2 > seven poor orphans girls were taken charge of by a benevolent 
 soul and placed under the pine trees and among the olive groves in a tiny 
 private house that they might no longer wander homeless. This was the 
 foundation of the Great Institution still called by the name given to them of 
 " Figlie di Maria,, (daughters of Mary) which under the direction of the grey 
 sisters of Saint Vincent de Paolo has gradually grown and been transformed 
 into the centre from which education, civilization and all the virtues go out 
 to the whole Island; for, under the administration of the able suor Ago- 
 stina Gassini, no less than one thousand five hundred orphans, deaf, dumb 
 or abandoned children, or little ones whose parents are otherwise occupied, or 
 rich girls whose parents desire them to profit by the remarkable educa- 
 tional advantages offered in it by these cultured women, are daily taught 
 and cared for in the various departments of this great beehive, which in- 
 cludes also night schools for men and for women and which therefore exer- 
 cises an influence for good which may be imagined. We can only speak here 
 of the deaf and dumb children who are the exhibitors of the net lace con- 
 tained in the 
 
 Album from Sardegna. MM II. 
 
 Number MMII. Their merry faces are reproduced in the photographs 
 placed with their work; and no one would ever believe they belonged to 
 poor mutes; the reason is easily found, for the motherly hearts of these 
 childless grey sisters have appreciated the longings of the maimed for the 
 company of the more blessed normal children, and so here during meal 
 and pay hours they arc constantly with the orphans, and amid smiles 
 and romps and gestures, they learn to imitate their young companions, 
 and guided during the hours of lessons by the wisdom of the sisters, quickly 
 learn to lisp the few uncertain words of which they possess the power 
 of articulating ; but better far than this is the effect on the character pro- 
 duced by this busy common life, and no words can depict the transformation 
 from sad moroseness to gay kindliness which occurs in the poor deaf mutes 
 who bask in the sunshine of this sweet and simple though great community. 
 
 Florentine Albums. A/A/ 1'., MM\7., MMVII. 
 
 Another orphanage and refuge for abandoned children is that of Saint 
 Silvestro, Borgo Pinto 14 Florence, which sends a large Album, MMV. and six- 
 photographs of laces which have been executed by inmates of this institution 
 which is greatly assisted in its noble work by the proceeds from peddling 
 its excellent lace from house to house and in the hotels of Florence. Album 
 MMVI. contains samples of the work executed in the Institution of Santa 
 Teresa Via dei Serragli 108, in Florence which is one of the poorest schools 
 and is under the guidance of the Tcresian nuns. MMIII. is the Album of 
 
140 
 
 lace samples sent by another Forentine institution in which the young idea 
 is taught to shoot and the young fingers are trained to useful occupations: 
 it is from the Leopoldina Industrial school, which is conducted on the same 
 principle as that of San Ranieri at Pisa. 
 
 Cantu School of Art. MMIX. A., B. 
 
 Two immense portfolios MMIX. A., B. represent the work executed by 
 the Pupils of a different kind of Industrial School, that in which only one 
 kind of trade, and the designing for it, is taught. These are from the School 
 of art applied to the manufacture of lace at the small town of Cantii, which 
 is situated near Lake Como and forms the centre of one of the greatest 
 lace producing regions of Italy. The lace industry was planted here in the 
 Sixteenth Century by nuns of the Benedictine order, and until about fifty 
 years ago was confined to the production of torchons and simple patterns. 
 To appreciate what it was at that period and the rapid progress since made, 
 compare work exhibited in these Portfolios of the School of Design, or in 
 these of the Cantuese producers, with 
 
 Album from Offida. MMXIV. 
 
 the Album from Ascoli Piceno sent by the Lady Patroness from the Marche, 
 Signora Tinti, which is composed of the most rudimentary quality of pillow 
 lace, for to such depths the once celebrated industry of Offida has fallen, this, 
 lace being now noticeable for its remarkable cheapness alone, or with 
 
 Piedmont. MMXIX. 
 
 consisting in a collection of simple samples of the laces worked in the Valley 
 of Aosta, sent by one of the Lady Patronesses from Piedmont, the Countess 
 Francesetti; those Ladies trust that in obtaining a ready sale for these simple 
 laces, the poor workwomen will be encouraged and the antique industry be 
 revived. 
 
 Lace at Cantii is mostly produced as an accessory to the other oc- 
 cupations of the inabitants. Many factories exist in this part of the country 
 and the fields are rich and require much work at certain seasons, and so 
 whenever a spare moment is found amid the cares of housekeeping the mo- 
 ther picks up her cushion and sets the bobbins flying, the children come 
 home from school, and fetching their cushions, seat themselves beside their 
 mother, and later, when the factories close and the sun has set on the 
 fields, grown up daughters come home and taking the remaining cushions 
 set merrily to work while recounting the simple adventures and gossip of 
 the day. This kind of sociable busy life can but produce an elevating effect 
 on the morals of a community and it has been noticed that wherever this 
 
141 
 
 industry flourishes, the people enjoy the reputation of being both thrifty and 
 moral. About ten thousand women work at lace making in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of Cantii alone, beside which a great many more support their 
 families by this means in other parts of the Province. 
 
 The work is produced either independently and sold to merchants who 
 go from house to house for the purpose of buying it, or at the weekly 
 market, or else it is executed upon the designs and with the guidance fur- 
 nished by the shopkeepers and lace merchants of Cantii. Some of these have 
 representatives travelling from city to city at certain seasons, selling their 
 products to the great shops, or established in one city or another; many others 
 execute work by contract for the lace emporiums, not being allowed to sell 
 the designs furnished to them; among others the house of Jesurum at Ve- 
 nice finds it worth while to have certain work for which the Cantuese enjoy 
 a special reputation executed there; and I seize this opportunity to thank, 
 in the name of the Commitee, the Cavaliere Michelangelo Jesurum, head of 
 this house, for the flattering interest he has evinced in our undertaking, and 
 the loan of some of the beautiful. 
 
 Polichrome laces. MML. 
 
 made in his Venetian School of Maria Pia, to complete his illustration of 
 the present condition of Italian Lace-making. This system is defective, for 
 the producer is very poorly paid and the middleman is in constant fear of 
 being crushed between the anvil and hammer, but many of these Cantuese 
 Merchants have, through inheritance or personal industry acquired a small 
 capital which enables them to stand alone, greatly to the advantage of their 
 work women, of their own self respect and of the public. The cleverest among 
 these are the following, who have produced really artistic work and already 
 enjoyed distinctions, medals and diplomas at various Exhibitions. 
 
 Antonia Meroni, who is head of an intelligent, artistic, kindly and cle- 
 ver family, and is most honorable in all her dealings and therefore a favorite 
 among the patronesses, sends an Album 
 
 Meroni Caniu. MM XV. 
 
 containing samples of perfectly executed lace, and a large collection for ex- 
 hibition and sale, consisting of beautiful designs from the antique, as also 
 Duchess silk Blondes and torchon laces. Large orders for pillow lace can be 
 more quickly executed by the firms of Cantii and those of Liguria than in 
 the schools because they have more skilled hands at their command, but- the 
 object of our organization is to distribute the work, when necessary, among 
 several different producers so as to satisfy a great demand in the shortest 
 space of time. 
 
142 
 
 Colombo Cantii. MMXV1II. 
 
 Angelo and Giuseppina Colombo exhibit an album containing 127 sam- 
 ples, as also a quantity of lace for sale which is superior by far to the sam- 
 ples, and contains pretty veils, scarfs and handkerchiefs in Duchess Blonde 
 and antique laces. 
 
 Marelli Cantii. MM VII. 
 
 Marelli Benedetta, the present head of a very old firm, exhibits also an 
 Album of samples and a large quantity of torchon silk blonde and Guipure 
 laces, besides distinguishing herself with some fine black Brussels lace scarfs 
 and shawls, and by great exactness in all her designs. 
 
 Gabri Carimate presso Cantii. MMIV. 
 
 The family of Marelli, through one of its daughters, Maria Marelli, who 
 married an Arnaboldi, also founded in 1821 at Carimate near Cantii the 
 firm now belonging to Vittorio Gabri which employs about 650 lace makers 
 The trade was established and flourished entirely for many years on or- 
 ders received from France. This firm has always enjoyed an enviable repu- 
 tation for the good quality and excellent designs of its work, especially for 
 delightfully soft silk blondes. 
 
 Another great and productive centre of lace making is the beautiful 
 Riviera di Levante, between the ports of Genoa and Spezia. Strangers who 
 linger in the Maritime Alps cannot imagine the charm of this exquisite re- 
 gion when the Riviera di Ponente has already become hot, dusty and ener- 
 vating, and this favoured region enjoys two seasons, that of the strangers in 
 winter, and that of the Italians in summer, for the latter find it more beneficial 
 than watering places farther away from home, as it possesses the rare com- 
 bination of sea and mountain air, with a good surf greatly charged with salt 
 and iodine. But foreigners in the summer pause alike to watch the diligent 
 lace makers who remain peacefully at home attending to their household 
 duties and supporting themselves and their little ones by the yards of snowy 
 lace which roll off the cushions from under the fingers of the entire family, 
 while their husbands on fishing smacks and ships scour the sea to bring home 
 a patrimony for their children. Genoa is the centre of the lace trade; Sta Mar- 
 guerita and Rapallo are the greatest producers of pillow lace on the coast, 
 and Chiavari is entirely devoted to that speciality of the Riviera, the fascinat- 
 ing knotted lace fringes for household linen called Macrame. 
 
 Chiavari Macrame. MMXLL, MMXLII. 
 
 Vincenzo Badarucco MMXLL and Nicola Bianchi exhibit quantities of 
 exquisite and artistic towels executed in this antique work. 
 
143 
 
 The lace makers of Rapallo, who exhibit under the patronage of the 
 wife of the Mayor, Signora Castagnetta Ricci, have sent an Album com- 
 posed of leaves, each dedicated to a different exhibitor. 
 
 School of the Providen^a. 
 
 Rapallo. MMXXIII. 
 
 The School of the Providenza comes first in the portfolio, followed by 
 
 Nicoletta Castagnetto Tessara. MMXXIV. 
 
 whose laces are beautifully executed and have received diplomas and medals. 
 
 Luigia Campodonico. Rapallo. MM XXV. 
 
 Number MMXXV. represents the well known and long established shop 
 of Luigia Campodonico, who exhibits both samples and laces of thread and 
 silk, and has been honoured with medals and diplomas. 
 
 Teresa Canevaro. Rapallo. MMXVI. 
 
 MMXXVI is the Number assigned to Teresa Canevaro who sends all the 
 kinds which are made in the neighbourhood such, as Lille, Malines, Chantilly 
 etc. Like many of the others she also has enjoyed distinctions, but we desire 
 all these laces to stand or fall on their own merits, and will cease the 
 lengthy enumeration of their qualifications. 
 
 Maria Schialtino. Quirolor MMXXVIJ. 
 
 Maria Schialtino of Quirolo exhibits samples and laces of the same type 
 with the above, as does also 
 
 Gheraldella Campodonico. Rapallo. MMXX I '111. 
 
 Every variety of Ligurian lace is made by 
 
 Rosa Lara la. MMXXXV, 
 
 but her speciality is an artistic quality of Chantilly. She exhibits a pretty 
 design of roses of which she sold a quantity to Her Majesty the German 
 Empress Frederick on her last visit to the Riviera. 
 
144 
 
 Angelo Morelli. Rapallo. MMXXIX. 
 
 Gaetano Vassallo. MM XXXI. 
 
 Colombo Caprili. MMXLVIII. 
 
 Anna Barbieri. MMXLIX. 
 
 all exhibit the same qualities of lace, but with no samples. The following 
 are the exhibitors from the neighbouring commune of Santa Margherita, the 
 most celebrated of which is, of course that of 
 
 Angela Baffico. MMXXXIIl 
 
 whose intelligent enterpsise has been mentioned as the cause of the present 
 prosperity of the lace trade in Liguria ; her heir, Lorenzo Barbagelata, sends 
 an album as well as a quantity of lace, principally by the yard, and a fine 
 deep flounce of Chantilly made in one piece with thousands of bobbins. 
 
 Felice Foppiano. MMXXXIX, 
 
 exhibits laces alone, and 
 
 Marianna Marigliano. MMXXXVI, 
 
 samples alone, but accompanied, as are the goods of several other exhibitors, 
 by a Pillow with lace upon it in process of fabrication. 
 
 Maria Raffo Costa. MMXXXVI1. 
 
 has a speciality in Blondes, Point de Lille and Duchess Laces. 
 From Sampierdarena almost at the gates of Genoa, 
 
 Ernesiina Zanotti. MMXXXVIII, 
 
 sends most artistic lace of perfect execution in gold, silver and white thread ; 
 her lace is of the highest merit and deserves to he universally copied in 
 Liguria, for she has returned to the original famous type of work. 
 
 Genoa. MMXL. 
 
 Giuseppe Russo, of Genoa, exhibits a large collection of samples of 
 modern laces made in Liguria, and 
 
Doctor Vittorio Macchiarello. MMXXX1X, 
 
 145 
 
 10 panels illustrative of lace-making in the same provinces. 
 
 Perugia. MM XI. 
 
 is part of an album exhibited by the ladies of Perugia and contains 101 
 samples of modern lace which they manufacture in their leisure hours, but 
 this is not the only exhibit of modern lace from Perugia. We have already 
 mentioned the superb, antique volume of Veccellio full of designs and samples 
 which belonged to a suppressed convent in that city. The nuns have, since 
 the secularization of their convents become a busy race without losing any 
 of their taste, and not only direct the children in the Asylums and nurse 
 the sick in the hospitals, but gather round them the miserable and disoc- 
 cupied everywhere. Some of the gentle sisterhood have descended to the 
 lowest step of abnegation, and in their humility have undertaken the super- 
 intendence and instruction of the most debased class of woman hood — that 
 of the convicts in the prisons, so that by their constant presence and loving, 
 pitying care they may redeem them, if possible, and show them that they 
 are lost by association and not by nature. To these the being taught lace-mak- 
 ing has proved invaluable, as it not only interests their artistic temperament, 
 but it permits long hours of personal civilizing intercourse, unsuspected by the 
 shy, shamed outcasts, who at the same time learn a trade which furnishes 
 them with an easy means of support for the first moments of sad liberty 
 when want and misery often impel to fresh deeds of crime. 
 
 Album from Perugia. MMX. 
 
 Number MMX. is the Album composed of beautifully executed samples 
 of torchon and Brussels pillow lace exhibited by the Sisters of Providence, 
 and worked under their direction in the great woman's prison at Perugia. 
 
 Messina. MMXXI. 
 
 is the album from the female prisons at Messina, where pillow laces and Si- 
 cilian drawn-work are perfectly copied from the antique. 
 
 Tuscan Homespuns. MMXL 1 11. 
 
 Another field of the Sisters' activity in Tuscany is illustrated by the 
 rich toned material which covers the walls and drapes the (*) windows of 
 
 (' ) The fringe is also woman's work, hcing dyed and woven by Maddalena Salvadori, Calle 
 di Pietro n. 5o8", San Bartolomeo, Venice, whose speciality is the copying of antique fringes. 
 
 19 
 
146 
 
 the Italian Section. Album MMXLVII. is formed of varied samples of this 
 quality of picturesque homespuns, made upon hand looms by the peasant 
 girls of Tuscany, under the direction of Suor Denis and the sisters of Cha- 
 rity at Migliarino, Province of Pisa, where these indefatigable women, with 
 no capital but faith and perseverance, have struggled on and planted a small 
 though flourishing artistic and deserving industry, the material which they use 
 being of the best, and the combinations of effect chosen with the unerring 
 good taste which is possessed by ladies of culture alone, no matter what 
 humble garb may conceal their identity. 
 
 These ladies hope that the appreciation of their artistic products, which 
 must arise when they are known, will bring them many orders which will 
 enable them to increase the looms, employ a larger number of destitute girls, 
 and form a small capital in cotton bought at wholesale prices which would 
 procure for them the possibility of selling more cleaply the artistic materials, 
 dress cottons and coarse homespuns, which are purely woman's work and 
 essentially original, as being produced without any assistance whatever from 
 the stronger sex. 
 
 But the gentle nuns have occupations further afield, wherever there 
 is ignorance and misery, and they do not hesitate in their self-abnegation 
 to seek the most distant lands in which to cultivate the industrious cha- 
 racteristics dormant in the laziest savage natures. They only follow the 
 example of their sisters of the Sixteenth century who meekly followed in the 
 destructive footsteps of the fierce and brutal conquerors of Peru and Mexico, 
 seeking to bind up the hearts which the latter had broken, and to cure the 
 wounds inflicted by their barbarity. They sought too, with the healing balm 
 of Christian charity, to soothe the distracted minds of the poor aborigines com- 
 mitted to their charge, and to train the trembling hands to firm self-reliance 
 through the practical arts of industrious peace. They caused the men to 
 build houses and churches under their direction, while they taught the women 
 to sew and make lace to adorn the altars of Him for love of whom they 
 toiled so patiently among these desolate races, and that their work was not 
 in vain is proved by the curious lace 
 
 DXCIX. Cases. 
 
 which has become identified with the inhabitants of Paraguay, and with the 
 lace makers still found among the Pacific Coast Indians of North America, 
 who have been considered worthy to form part of the great World's Fair 
 which constitutes the apotheosis of Woman's development throughout the 
 
 ages. 
 
 The Italian missionary nuns of to day follow in the paths laid out by 
 their predecessors, humbly thanking God that the inventions of the nineteenth 
 century render their task less arduous, 
 
H7 
 
 and in Ceylon 
 
 DCXV. Cases. 
 
 in the Islands of the Archipelago, in far Japan, and in isolated China 
 
 DC XIX., DCXCV1L Cases, 
 
 in every land where Christianity has penetrated they train the girls in 
 womanly occupations, so that the little heathen orphans entrusted to their 
 instruction owe them a knowledge of lace-making which, practiced with in- 
 dustry, even should other means fail, would always keep them from mi- 
 sery and starvation. Since History began Italy has ever marched in the van- 
 guard of progress, and when under the barbarian invasions which followed 
 on the fall of the Roman Empire all Europe was one battle-field of strife 
 and bloodshed engendered by envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness, 
 fair Italy first awoke from her shame, and raising her head shook off the 
 insidious barbarism of the middle ages which was trying to destroy all re- 
 cord of her great Latin past, and uprose with a mighty determination to 
 redeem her reputation, and recivilize and educate mankind. The other nations 
 of Europe stood awestruck by the products of her fertile genius. The writ- 
 ings of her great sons penetrated every corner of the continent and quickened 
 the hearts and souls of intelligent men to higher aspirations. The beautiful 
 remnants of her frail laces, stranded in every town of civilization, are but the 
 straws left by the current to indicate where its vivifying waters have passed. 
 But alas, the taste of these was very sweet and strong, and proved as in- 
 toxicating as wine from Sicilian vineyards, and so each nation determined 
 to call the fountain head its own, and the clamour of strife re-echoed from 
 the Alps to the Apennines and once more the sons of the soil were ground 
 down beneath a usurping foreign heel. 
 
 The Powers of to-day still gaze longingly towards the sunny hills and 
 blue skies of United Italy, and the young nation is forced to spend all that 
 it can earn to arm itself to the teeth and defend its hearths and homes against 
 the covetous, instead of using it upon the education of her poorest children. 
 Oh, proud and rich Columbia, if you want Italians to remain at home 
 and keep far from your cities and your ports, open these instead to their 
 trade; let the oil and the fruits, and the silk and the flax, the beautiful 
 artistic carvings in wood and in stone, the original paintings and the repro- 
 ductions of the glorious works of the past, the soft laces and rich embroideries 
 executed by the women, enter your land in their stead ; they love their 
 simple homes with a passion that is unquenchable and will bless you for the 
 alternative. Cause your happy citizens to remember the pleasant weeks of 
 travel they have enjoyed among the beautiful views of Italy, the foreground 
 ever composed of wondrous monuments and works of art; cause them to 
 think of the potent charm which has moved them in your theatres or in 
 their own houses while listening to the superb music of Italian composers, 
 
US 
 
 the rich voices of Italian singers; or when alone beside their hearths, winter 
 cold and summer heat have been alike forgotten in conning the enchanting 
 descriptions of Virgil, Pliny, Tasso, Petrarch, Manzoni and half a hundred 
 others. Cause them to think of the teachings of Saint Augustine, of Sava- 
 narola, and of Galileo, and of the emotion experienced when first stirred 
 by the overwhelming, awful language of great Dante, and the next time 
 they have to do with poor benighted Italian emigrants, let them remember 
 that the same rich soil gave birth alike to all these, and if this fail to touch 
 their hearts, and charitable Americans should still desire to close your door 
 on these brothers in faith and feature, whose only fault is lack of education, 
 let them pause and remember: God did not send one of the great Italians 
 in 1492, across the ocean to discover " an America for the Americans „ as 
 these existed already in your first dusky sons who have been cruelly sacri- 
 ficed to the exigences of progress, but to found a home full of prosperity 
 and freedom alike for the persecuted and enterprising sons of all Europe in 
 which they might grow and develope into a grand new nation. Cristoforo 
 Colombo of Genoa, who sailed from .Spain with a crew composed of reckless 
 souls from all the ports of the Mediterranean coast, brought no money in 
 his hand, no treasures in his ship ; his riches were Intelligence and Will] the 
 early settlers, fleeing from persecutiou were no better provided, and as the 
 centuries have rolled on and you have grown, rich and powerful, the personal 
 condition and the character ot the Italians who seek your shores has not 
 changed; Oh hearken, fair, mighty, glorious Columbia! God-child and name- 
 sake of the great Genoese ! it is one of your own daughters who calls to 
 you across the waters he traversed in search of you: Close not your doors 
 against his kinsmen, lest in the throng you shut out one of his own child- 
 ren, heir to that genius to which you owe your very being. 
 
 Caslello di Bra" x a, March 11 th 1893. 
 
ERRATA 
 
 The gentle reader is requested to excuse the typographical errors which have crept in, 
 as they are due to the fact the Compositors were Italians entirely unacquainted with the English 
 language. 
 
 Page Line For Read 
 
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 deftly 
 
 
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 87 
 
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 platters 
 
 
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Venezia, 1893. — Tipografia Emiliana.