MILAN ("Milano la Grande").

One of the earliest records of Italian lace belongs to Milan, and occurs in an instrument of partition between the sisters Angela and Ippolita Sforza Visconti, dated 1493 (see Venice).

This document is of the highest interest as giving the inventory of an Italian wardrobe of the fifteenth century. In it, amidst a number of curious entries, are veils of good network, with cambric pillow-cases, linen sheets, mosquito curtains and various articles, worked a reticella and a groppi, with the needle, bobbins, bones, and other different ways^[196] mentioned in the pattern-books of the following century.

Among other items we find, "Half of a bundle containing patterns for ladies' work."^[197]

Though the fabric of these fine points dates back for so many centuries, there is little notice of them elsewhere. Henry VIII. is mentioned as wearing one short pair of hose of purple silk of Venice gold, woven like a caul, edged with a passamaine lace of purple silk and gold, worked at Milan.^[198]

In a wardrobe account of Lord Hay, gentleman of his Majesty's robes, 1606,^[199] is noted down to James I., "One suit with cannons thereunto of silver lace, shadowed with silk Milan lace."

Again, among the articles furnished against the "Queen's lying down," 1606, in the bills of the Lady Audrye Walsingham,^[200] is an entry of "Lace, Milan fashion, for child's waistcoat."

A French edict, dated March, 1613, against superfluity in dress, prohibiting the wearing of gold and silver embroidery, specially forbids the use of all "passement de Milan, ou façon de Milan" under a penalty of one thousand livres.^[201] The expression "à point de Milan" occurs in the statutes of the passementiers of Paris.^[202]

"Les galons, passements et broderies, en or et en argent de Milan," says Savary,^[203] were once celebrated.

Lalande, who writes some years later, adds, the laces formerly were an object of commerce to the city, now they only fabricate those of an inferior quality.^[204]

Much was consumed by the Lombard peasants, the better sorts serving for ruffles of moderate price.^[205] So opulent are the citizens, says a writer of the same epoch, that the lowest mechanics, blacksmiths and shoemakers, appear in gold stuff coats with ruffles of the finest point.^[206]

And when, in 1767, the Auvergne lace-makers petition for an exemption from the export duty on their fabrics, they state as a ground that the duty prevents them from competing abroad, especially at Cadiz, with the lace-makers of Piedmont, the Milanais, and Imperial Flanders. Milan must, therefore, have made lace extensively to a late period.

Fig. 33 is a specimen of what has been termed old Milan point, from the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, in that city. It is more often known as Greek lace.

The so-called punti di Milano—points de Milan—were all bobbin-laces, which originated in Milan, and, though imitated by Genoa and Naples, remained unapproached in design and workmanship. After first making passements, Milan imitated the Venetian points, "a fogliami," in which the pattern has the appearance of woven linen, with à jours occasionally introduced to lighten portions of it. The design was at first connected with bars, but later, meshes (in the seventeenth century large meshes, and, still later, smaller meshes) filled the ground. This réseau varies, but most frequently it has four plaited sides to a mesh, as in Valenciennes.

Like other Italian laces, Milanese lace frequently has coats-of-arms or family badges woven in it, such as the Doge's horn, the baldachino (a special distinction accorded to Roman princes), the dogs of the Carrara family, and so on, to commemorate a marriage or some other important event in the family. This sort of lace was known as Carnival lace when made of Venetian point.

Milan lace is now represented by Cantu, near Lake Como, where the making of white and black pillow-lace gives employment to many thousands of women. The torchon lace of the country is original, and in much request with the peasantry.

In the underground chapel of San Carlo Borromeo, in Milan Cathedral, are preserved twenty-six "camicie," trimmed with flounces of the richest point, all more or less splendid, and worked in the convents of the city, but many of the contents of this sumptuous wardrobe have rotted away from the effects of the damp atmosphere.

FLORENCE.

Of Florence and its products we know but little, though the Elegy of Agnolo Firenzuola proves that ladies made raised point at an early period.^[207] His expression "scolpì," carved, sculptured in basso rilievo, leaves no doubt upon the matter.

Henry VIII. granted to two Florentines the privilege of importing for three years' time all "manner of fringys and passements wrought with gold and silver or otherwise,"^[208] an account of which will be found in the notice of that monarch's reign.

Beyond this, and the statute already mentioned, passed at the "Sute of the Browderers" on account of the "deceyptful waight of the gold of Luk, Florence, Jeane, and Venice,"^[209] there is no allusion to the lace of Florence in our English records.

In France, as early as 1545, the sister of Francis I. purchases "soixante aulnes fine dantelle de Florence"^[210] for her own use, and some years afterwards, 1582, the Queen of Navarre pays 17 écus 30 sols for 10 aulnes et demye of the same passement "faict à l'esguille à haulte dantelle pour mettre à des fraizes."^[211] On the marriage of Elizabeth de France with Philip II. in 1559, purchases were made of "passements et de bisette, en fil blanc de Florence."

Seeing the early date of these French accounts, it may be inferred that Catherine de Médicis first introduced, on her arrival as a bride, the Italian points of her own native city.^[212]

In Florence, in the fifteenth century, Savonarola, in his sermons (1484-1491), reproached the nuns with "devoting their time to the vain fabrication of gold laces with which to adorn the houses and persons of the rich."

Ray mentions that people of quality sent their daughters at eight years old to the Florentine nunneries to be instructed in all manner of women's work.

Lace was also fabricated at Sienna, but it appears to have been the lavoro di maglia or lacis, called by the Tuscans modano ricamato—embroidered network.

Early in the last century two Genoese nuns, of the Convent Sta. Maria degli Angeli in Sienna, executed pillow laces and gold and silver embroidery of such surpassing beauty, that they are still carefully preserved and publicly exhibited on fête-days. One Francesca Bulgarini also instructed the schools in the making of lace of every kind, especially the Venetian reticella.^[213]

THE ABRUZZI.

In the Abruzzi, and also the Province of the Marche, coarse laces are made. These are worked without any drawing, the rude design being made by skipping the pin-holes on a geometrically perforated card. The pattern is surrounded by a heavy thread, and composed of a close stitch worked between the meshes of a coarse net ground. This lace somewhat resembles Dalecarlian lace. In the eighteenth century fine pillow lace was also made in these provinces. The celebrated industry of Offida in the Marche has sunk into artistic degradation.

ROMAGNA.

Lace was made in many parts of Romagna. Besides the knotted lace already alluded to,^[214] which is still made and worn by the peasants, the peasant women wore on their collerettes much lace of that large-flowered pattern and fancy ground, found alike in Flanders and on the headdresses of the Neapolitan and Calabrian peasants.

Specimens of the lace of the province of Urbino resemble in pattern and texture the fine close lace on the collar of Christian IV., figured in our notice of Denmark. The workmanship is of great beauty.

Reticella is made at Bologna, and was revived in January, 1900, by the Aemilia-Ars Co-operative Society. The designs are for the most part taken from old pattern-books, such as Parasole.

Fig. 34 represents a fragment of a piece of lace of great interest, communicated by the Countess Gigliucci. It is worked with the needle upon muslin, and only a few inches of the lace are finished. This incompleteness makes it the more valuable, as it enables us to trace the manner of its execution, all the threads being left hanging to its several parts. The Countess states that she found the work at a villa belonging to Count Gigliucci, near Fermo on the Adriatic, and it is supposed to have been executed by the Count's great-grandmother above 160 years ago—an exquisite specimen of "the needle's excellency."

Though the riches of our Lady of Loreto fill a volume in themselves,^[215] and her image was fresh clad every day of the year, the account of her jewels and plate so overpower any mention of her laces, which were doubtless in accordance with the rest of the wardrobe, that there is nothing to tell on the subject.

The laces of the Vatican and the holy Conclave, mostly presents from crowned heads, are magnificent beyond all description. They are, however, constantly in the market, sold at the death of a Cardinal by his heirs, and often repurchased by some newly-elected prelate, each of whom on attaining a high ecclesiastical dignity is compelled to furnish himself with several sets.

A lady^[216] describing the ceremony of washing the feet by the Pope, writes, in 1771, "One of his cardinals brought him an apron^[217] of old point with a broad border of Mechlin lace, and tied it with a white ribbon round his holiness's waist." In this guise protected, he performed the ceremony.

Clement IX. was in the habit of making presents of Italian lace, at that period still prized in France, to Monsieur de Sorbière, with whom he had lived on terms of intimacy previous to his elevation. "He sends ruffles," cries the irritated Gaul, who looked for something more tangible, "to a man who never has a shirt."^[218]

NAPLES.

When Davies, Barber Surgeon of London,^[219] visited Naples in 1597, he writes, "Among the traffic of this city is lace of all sorts and garters."

Fynes Moryson, his contemporary, declares "the Italians care not for foreign apparel, they have ruffles of Flanders linen wrought with Italian cut-work so much in use with us. They wear no lace in gold and silver, but black"; while Lassels says, all they care for is to keep a coach; their point de Venise and gold lace are all turned into horses and liveries.^[220]

Of this lace we find but scanty mention. In the tailor's bill of Sir Timothy Hutton, 1615, when a scholar at Cambridge, a charge is made for "four oz. and a half quarter and dram of Naples lace." And in the accounts of laces furnished for the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Palatine, 1612, is noted "narrow black Naples lace, purled on both sides."

The principal fabric of lace was in the Island of Ischia. Vecellio, in 1590, mentions the ladies' sleeves being trimmed with very fine thread lace.^[221] Ischia lace may still be met with, and serves for trimming toilets, table-covers, curtains, etc., consisting generally of a square netting ground, with the pattern embroidered. Black silk lace also used to be made in Ischia.

Much torchon lace, of well-designed patterns, was also made, similar in style to that given in Fig. 40.

Though no longer fabricated in the island, the women at Naples still make a coarse lace, which they sell about the streets.^[222]

The punto di Napoli is a bobbin lace, resembling the punto di Milano, but distinguished from it by its much rounder mesh and coarser make.

Towards the middle of the last century, many of the Italian sculptors adopted an atrocious system, only to be rivalled in bad taste by those of the Lower Empire, that of dressing the individuals they modelled in the costume of the period, the colours of the dress represented in varied marbles. In the villa of Prince Valguarnera, near Palermo, were some years since many of these strange productions with rich laces of coffee-coloured point, admirably chiselled, it must be owned, in giallo antico, the long flowing ruffles and head-*tires of the ladies being reproduced in white alabaster.^[223]

GENOA ("Genova la Superba").

The art of making gold thread, already known to the Etruscans, took a singular development in Italy during the fourteenth century.

Genoa^[224] first imitated the gold threads of Cyprus. Lucca followed in her wake, while Venice and Milan appear much later in the field. Gold of Jeane formed, as already mentioned, an item in our early statutes. The merchants mingled the pure gold with Spanish "laton," producing a sort of "faux galon," such as is used for theatrical purposes in the present day. They made also silver and gold lace out of drawn wire, after the fashion of those discovered, not long since, at Herculaneum.

When Skippin visited Turin, in 1651, he described the manner of preparing the metal wire. The art maintained itself latest at Milan, but died out towards the end of the seventeenth century.

Our earliest mention of Genoa lace is,^[225] as usual, to be found in the Great Wardrobe Accounts of Queen Elizabeth, where laces of Jeane of black "serico satten," of colours,^[226] and billement lace of Jeane silk, are noted down. They were, however, all of silk.

It is not till after a lapse of nigh seventy years that first Point de Gênes appears mentioned in an ordinance,^[227] and in the wardrobe of Mary de Médicis is enumerated, among other articles, a "mouchoir de point de Gennes frisé."^[228]

Moryson, who visited the Republic in 1589, declares "the Genoese wear no lace or gardes."

As late as 1597, writes Vulson de la Colombière,^[229] "ni les points de Gennes, ni de Flandre n'etoient en usage."

It was not before the middle of the seventeenth century that the points of Genoa were in general use throughout Europe. Handkerchiefs, aprons, collars,^[230] seem rather to have found favour with the public than lace made by the yard.

No better customer was found for these luxurious articles of adornment than the fair Madame de Puissieux, already cited for her singular taste in cut-work.

"Elle étoit magnifique et ruina elle et ses enfans. On portoit en ce temps-la," writes St. Simon; "force points de Gênes qui étoient extrêmement chers; c'étoit la grande parure—et la parure de tout age: elle en mangea pour 100,000 ecus (£20,000) en une année, à ronger entre ses dents celle qu'elle avoit autour de sa tête et de ses bras."^[231]

"The Genoese utter a world of points of needlework," writes Lassels, at the end of the century, and throughout the eighteenth we hear constantly of the gold, silver and thread lace, as well as of the points of Genoa, being held in high estimation.

Gold and silver lace was prohibited to be worn within the walls of the city, but they wear, writes Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, exceeding fine lace and linen.^[232] Indeed, by the sumptuary laws of the Republic, the richest costume allowed to the ladies was black velvet trimmed with their home-made point.

The femmes bourgeoises still edge their aprons with point lace, and some of the elder women wear square linen veils trimmed with coarse lace.^[233]

"That decayed city, Genoa, makes much lace, but inferior to that of Flanders," states Anderson in his Origin of Commerce, 1764.

The Genoese wisely encouraged their own native manufacture, but it was now, however, chiefly for home consumption.

Savary, speaking of the Genoa fabric, says: As regards France, these points have had the same lot as those of Venice—ruined by the act of prohibition.

In 1840, there were only six lace-sellers in the city of Genoa. The women work in their own houses, receiving materials and patterns from the merchant who pays for their labour.^[234]

Lace, in Genoa, is called pizzo. Punti in aco were not made in this city. The points of Genoa, so prized in the seventeenth century, were all the work of the pillow, a piombini,^[235] or a mazzetta, as the Italians term it, of fine handspun thread brought from Lombardy. Silk was procured from Naples. Of this Lombardy thread were the magnificent collars of which we give an example (Fig. 35), and the fine guipures à réseau which were fashioned into aprons and fichus. The old Genoa point still finds favour in the eyes of the clergy, and on fête days, either at Genoa or Savona, may be seen splendid lace decorating the camicie of the ecclesiastics.

The Ligurian or Genoese guipures have four entirely distinctive characters. The Hispano-Moresque (or Greek) point de Gênes frisé, the Vermicelli from Rapallo and Santa Margherita, a lace resembling Milanese lace with "brides," and a fourth kind, entirely different from these varieties, 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 a very few bars. In all these laces, as in Neapolitan and Milanese lace, a crochet needle is used to join the bars and design by drawing one thread through a pin-hole in the lace and passing a free bobbin through the loop to draw the knot tight.

The lace manufacture extends along the coast from Albissola, on the Western Riviera, to Santa Margherita on the eastern. Santa Margherita and Rapallo are called by Luxada^[236] the emporium of the lace industry of Genoa, and are still the greatest producers of pillow-lace on the coast. The workers are mostly the wives and daughters of the coral-fishers who support themselves by this occupation during the long and perilous voyages of their husbands. In the archives of the parochial church of Santa Margherita is preserved a book of accounts, in which mention is made, in the year 1592, of gifts to the church, old nets from the coral fishery, together with pisetti (pizzi), the one a votive offering of some successful fishermen, the other the work of their wives or daughters, given in gratitude for the safe return of their relatives. There was also found an old worn parchment pattern for a kind of tape guipure (Fig. 36).^[237] The manufacture, therefore, has existed in the province of Chiavari for many centuries. Much of this description of lace is assigned to Genoa. In these tape guipures the tape or braid was first made, and the ground worked in on the parchment either by the needle or on the pillow. The laces consist of white thread of various qualities, either for wear, church decoration, or for exportation to America.

Later, this art gave place to the making of black blonde, in imitation of Chantilly, of which the centres in Italy are now Genoa and Cantu. In the year 1850 the lace-workers began to make guipures for France, and these now form their chief produce. The exportation is very great, and lace-making is the daily occupation, not only of the women, but of the ladies of the commune.^[238] In 1862 Santa Margherita had 2,210 lace-workers: Rapallo, 1,494. The maestri, or overseers, receive all orders from the trade, and find hands to execute them. The silk and thread required for the lace is weighed out and given to the lace-makers, and the work when completed is re-weighed to see that it corresponds with that of the material given. The maestri contrive to realise large fortunes, and become in time signori; not so the poor lace-makers, whose hardest day's gain seldom exceeds a franc and a half.^[239] Embroidered lace is also made at Genoa. On a band of tulle are embroidered in darning-stitch flowers or small detached springs, and the ground is sometimes semé with little embroidered dots. A coarse thread outlines the embroidery.

The laces of Albissola,^[240] near Savona, of black and white thread, or silk of different colours, were once an article of considerable exportation to the principal cities of Spain, Cadiz, Madrid and Seville. This industry was of early date. In many of the parochial churches of Albissola are specimens of the native fabric dating from 1600, the work of devout ladies; and parchment patterns drawn and pricked for pillow-lace, bearing the earlier date of 1577, have been found covering old law books, the property of a notary of Albissola. The designs (Fig. 37) are flowing, but poor, and have probably served for some shawl or apron, for it was a custom long handed down for the daughters of great nobles, previous to their marriage, to select veils and shawls of this fabric, and, in the memory of an aged workwoman (1864), the last of these bridal veils was made for a lady of the Gentili family. Princes and lords of different provinces in Italy sent commissions to Albissola for these articles in the palmy days of the fabric, and four women would be employed at one pillow, with sixty dozen bobbins at a time.^[241] The making of this lace formed an occupation by which women in moderate circumstances were willing to increase their incomes. Each of these ladies, called a maestra, had a number of workers under her, either at home or out. She supplied the patterns, pricked them herself, and paid her workwomen at the end of the week, each day's work being notched on a tally.^[242] The women would earn from ten soldi to two lire a day. The last fine laces made at Albissola were bought up by the lace-merchants of Milan on the occasion of the coronation of Napoleon I. in that city.^[243]

Among the Alençon laces is illustrated a beautiful lappet sent from Genoa, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.^[244] The pattern is of the Louis Quinze period, and the lovely diapered ground recalls the mayflower of the Dresden and the œil-de-perdrix of the Sèvres china of that time. It was supposed to be of Italian workmanship, though the very fine ground introduced in the modes of the riband pattern is the true Alençon réseau stitch. M. Dupont Auberville claimed it for Alençon, asserting he had met with the same ground on point undoubtedly of that manufacture. He named it réseau rosacé.

A considerable quantity of lace was formerly made from the fibre of the aloe (filo d'erba spada)^[245] by the peasants of Albissola, either of its natural cream colour or dyed black. This lace, however, like that fabricated in the neighbourhood of Barcelona, would not stand washing.^[246]

There exists a beautiful and ingenious work taught in the schools and convents along the Riviera. It is carried to a great perfection at Chiavari and also at the Albergo de' Poveri at Genoa. You see it in every stage. It is almost the first employment of the fingers which the poor children of either sex learn. This art is principally applied to the ornamenting of towels, termed Macramé,^[247] a long fringe of thread being left at each end for the purpose of being knotted together in geometrical designs (Fig. 38). Macramé at the Albergo de' Poveri were formerly made with a plain plaited fringe, till in 1843, the Baroness A. d' Asti brought one from Rome, richly ornamented, which she left as a pattern. Marie Picchetti, a young girl, had the patience to unpick the fringe and discover the way it was made. A variety of designs are now executed, the more experienced inventing fresh patterns as they work. Some are applied to church purposes. Specimens of elaborate workmanship were in the Paris Exhibition of 1867. These richly-trimmed macramé form an item in the wedding trousseau of a Genoese lady, while the commoner sorts find a ready sale in the country, and are also exported to South America and California.^[248]

CANTU.

Cantu, a small town near Lake Como, is one of the greatest lace-producing centres in Italy. The lace industry was planted there in the sixteenth century by the nuns of the Benedictine order, and until fifty years ago was confined to simple and rude designs. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, however, the industry has been revived and the designs improved. Thousands of women throughout the province work at it and dispose of their lace independently to travelling merchants, or work under the direction of the Cantuese lace-merchants. The laces are all made with bobbins with both thread and silk.

SICILY.

Sicily was celebrated in olden times for its gold and metal laces, but this fabric has nearly died out. An attempt, however, is now being made to organise a revival of the lace industry as a means of support for the women of Palermo and other populous centres.

At Messina, embroidered net (lacis) was made, and bobbin-laces and the antique Sicilian drawn-work are now copied in the women's prison there. Torchon, a lace which is also made in Sicily, has no design worked upon the parchment. The peasant follows the dictates of her fancy, and forms combinations of webs and nets by skipping the holes pricked at regular intervals over the strip of parchment sewed upon the cushion or ballon.^[249]

There are other variations of old Italian laces and embroideries which have not been mentioned here on account of space; either they are not often met with—certainly not outside Italy—or in some cases they appear to be only local names for the well-known sorts.

CHAPTER V.

GREECE.

We have already spoken of Greece as the cradle of embroidery, and in those islands which escaped the domination of the Turks, the art still lingered on. Cyprus, to which in after times Venice gave a queen, was renowned for its gold, its stuffs, and its needlework. As early as 1393, in an inventory of the Dukes of Burgundy, we find noted "un petit pourpoint de satin noir, et est la gorgerette de maille d'argent de Chippre"—a collar of silver network.^[250] The peasants now make a coarse thread lace, and some fine specimens have recently been made in white silk, which were exhibited in the Cyprus Court of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886, and are now in the possession of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

In our own country, in 1423, we have a statute touching the deceitful works of the embroiderers of gold and of silver of Cipre, which shall be forfeited to the king.^[251] But the secret of these cunning works became, after a time, known throughout Europe. Of cut-works or laces from Cyprus^[252] and the islands of the Grecian seas, there is no mention; but we hear much of a certain point known to the commerce of the seventeenth century as that of Ragusa, which, after an ephemeral existence, disappears from the scene. Of Ragusa, says Anderson, "her citizens, though a Popish state, are manufacturers to a man."

Ragusa, comparatively near the Montenegrin sea-board, and north-western coast of Greece, was, in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, one of the principal Adriatic ports belonging to the Venetian Republic. Certain it is that this little republic, closely allied with the Italian branches of the House of Austria, served them with its navy, and in return received from them protection. The commerce of Ragusa consisted in bearing the products of the Greek islands and Turkey to Venice, Ancona, and the kingdom of Naples;^[253] hence it might be inferred that the fine productions of the Greek convents were first introduced into Italy by the merchants of Dalmatia, and received on that account the denomination of points de Raguse. When Venice had herself learned the art, these cut-works and laces were no longer in demand; but the fabric still continued, and found favour in its native isles, chiefly for ecclesiastical purposes, the dress of the islanders, and for grave-clothes.

In our English statutes we have no allusion to the point de Raguse; in those of France^[254] it appears twice. "Tallemant des Réaux"^[255] and the "Révolte des Passemens"^[256] both give it honourable notice. Judging from the lines addressed to it in the last-named jeu d'esprit, point de Raguse was of a more costly character, "faite pour ruiner les estats,"^[257] than any of those other points present. If, however, from this period it did still form an article of commerce, we may infer that it appeared under the general appellation of point de Venise. Ragusa had affronted Louis Quatorze by its attachment to the Austro-Italian princes; he kicked out her ambassadors,^[258] and if the name of the point was unpleasant, we may feel assured it was no longer permitted to offend the royal ears.