Qui, par une vaine despence,
Ruinoient aujourd'huy la France"--
meet, and concert measures for their common safety. Point de Gênes, with
Point de Raguse, first address the company; next, Point de Venise, who
seems to look on Raguse with a jealous eye, exclaims--
"Encore pour vous, Poinct de Raguse,
Il est bon, crainte d'attentat,
D'en vouloir perger un estat.
Les gens aussy fins que vous estes
Ne sont bons que, comme vous faites,
Pour ruiner tous les estats.
Et vous, Aurillac ou Venise,
Si nous plions notre valise,"
what will be our fate?
The other laces speak, in their turn, most despondently, till a "vieille
broderie d'or," consoling them, talks of the vanity of this world:--"Who
knows it better than I, who have dwelt in kings' houses?" One "grande
dentelle d'Angleterre" now proposes they should all retire to a convent. To
this the "Dentelles de Flandres" object; they would sooner be sewn at once
to the bottom of a petticoat.
Mesdames les Broderies resign themselves to become "ameublement;" the more
devout of the party to appear as "devants d'autel;" those who feel too
young to renounce the world and its vanities will seek refuge in the
masquerade shops.
"Dentelle noire d'Angleterre" lets herself out cheap to a fowler, as a net
to catch woodcocks, for which she felt "assez propre" in her present
predicament.
The Points all resolve to retire to their own countries, save Aurillac, who
fears she may be turned into a strainer "pour passer les fromages
d'Auvergne," a smell insupportable to one who had revelled in civet and
orange-flower.
All were starting--
"Chacun, dissimulant sa rage,
Doucement ploit son bagage,
Resolu d'obéir au sort,"
when
"Une pauvre malheureuse,
Qu'on apelle, dit on, la Gueuse,"
{42}arrives, in a great rage, from a village in the environs of Paris. "She
is not of high birth, but has her feelings all the same. She will never
submit. She has no refuge--not even a place in the hospital. Let them
follow her advice and 'elle engageoit sa chaînette,' she will replace them
all in their former position."
Next morn, the Points assemble. "Une grande Cravate[135] fanfaron"
exclaims:--
"Il nous faut venger cet affront,
Revoltons-nous, noble assemblée."
A council of war ensues:--
"La dessus, le Poinct d'Alençon
Ayant bien appris sa leçon
Fit une fort belle harangue."
Flanders now boasts how she had made two campaigns under Monsieur, as a
cravat; another had learned the art of war under Turenne; a third was torn
at the siege of Dunkirk.
"Racontant des combats qu'ils ne virent jamais,"
one and all had figured at some siege or battle.
"Qu'avons nous à redouter?"
cries Dentelle d'Angleterre. No so, thinks Point de Gênes, "qui avoit le
corps un peu gros."
They all swear--
"Foy de Passement,
Foy de Poincts et de Broderie,
De Guipure et d'Orfévrerie,
De Gueuse de toute façon,"
to declare open war, and to banish the Parliament.
The Laces assemble at the fair of St. Germain, there to be reviewed by
General Luxe.
The muster-roll is called over by Colonel Sotte Depense. Dentelles de
Moresse, Escadrons de Neige, Dentelles de Hâvre, Escrues, Soies noires, and
Points d'Espagne, etc., march forth in warlike array, to conquer or to die.
At the first approach of the artillery they all take to their heels, and
are condemned by a council of war--the Points to be made into tinder, for
the sole use of the King's Mousquetaires; the Laces to be converted into
paper; the Dentelles, {43}Escrues, Gueuses, Passemens, and Silk Lace to be
made into cordage and sent to the galleys; the Gold and Silver Laces, the
original authors of the sedition, to be "burned alive."
Finally, through the intercession of Love--
"Le petit dieu plein de finesse,"
they are again pardoned and restored to court favour.
The poem is curious, as giving an account of the various kinds of lace, and
as a specimen of the taste of the time, but the "ton précieux" of the Hôtel
Rambouillet pervades throughout.
The lace trade, up to this period, was entirely in the hands of pedlars,
who carried their wares to the principal towns and large country-houses.
"One Madame La Boord," says Evelyn, "a French peddling-woman, served Queen
Katherine with petticoats, fans, and foreign laces." These hawkers attended
the great fairs[136] of Europe, where all purchases were made.[137]
Even as early as King Henry III.[138] we have a notice "to purchase robes
at the fair of St. Ives, for the use of Richard our brother"; and in the
dramas of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we find constant
allusion to these provincial markets:--[139]
"Seven
Pedlars' shops, nay all Sturbridge fair,[140] will
Scarce furnish her."[141]
{44}The custom of carrying lace from house to house still exists in
Belgium, where at Spa and other places, colporteurs,[142] with packs
similar to those borne by our pedlars, bring round to the visitors laces of
great value, which they sell at cheaper rates than those exposed in the
shops.[143]
Many travellers, too, through the counties of Buckingham and Bedford, or
the more southern regions of Devon, will still call to mind the inevitable
lace box handed round for purchase by the waiter at the conclusion of the
inn dinner; as well as the girls who, awaiting the arrival of each
travelling carriage or postchaise, climbed up to the windows of the
vehicle, rarely allowing the occupants to go their way until they had
purchased some article of the wares so pertinaciously offered to their
inspection.
In Paris, the lace trade was the exclusive privilege of the
passementiers.[144]
PLATE X.
[Illustration: ITALIAN. POINT DE VENISE À LA ROSE. Modern reproduction at
Burano of seventeenth century lace. Width, 17 in.
Photo by the Burano School.]
_To face page 44._
{45}CHAPTER IV.
ITALY.
"It grazed on my shoulder, takes me away six parts of an Italian cut-work
band I wore, cost me three pounds in the Exchange but three days
before."--Ben Jonson--_Every Man Out of His Humour_,1599.
"Ruffles well wrought and fine falling bands of Italian cut-work."--_Fair
Maid of the Exchange_, 1627.
The Italians claim the invention of point, or needle-made lace.
It has been suggested they derived the art of fine needlework from the
Greeks who took refuge in Italy from the troubles of the Lower Empire; and
what further confirms its Byzantine origin is, that those very places which
kept up the closest intercourse with the Greek Empire are the cities where
point lace was earliest made and flourished to the greatest extent.[145]
A modern Italian author,[146] on the other hand, asserts that the Italians
learned embroidery from the Saracens of Sicily, as the Spaniards acquired
the art from the Moors of Granada or Seville, and brings forward, as proof
of his theory, that the word to embroider, both in Italian and
Spanish,[147] is derived from the Arabic, and no similar word exists in any
other European language.[148] This theory may apply to embroidery, but
certainly not to lace; for with the exception of the Turkish crochet
"oyah," and some darned netting and drawn-work which occur in Persian and
Chinese tissues, there is nothing approaching to lace to be found on any
article of oriental manufacture.
{46}We proceed to show that evidences of the lace-fabric appear in Italy as
early as the fifteenth century.
In 1476, the Venetian Senate decreed that no Punto in Aria whatever,
executed either in flax with a needle, or in silver or gold thread, should
be used on the curtains or bed-linen in the city or provinces. Among the
State archives of the ducal family of Este, which reigned in Ferrara for so
many centuries, Count Gandini found mentioned in a Register of the
Wardrobe, dated 1476 (A. C. 87), an order given for a felt hat "alla
Borgognona," trimmed with a silver and silk gimp made with bobbins. Besides
this, in the same document is noted (A. C. 96) a velvet seat with a canopy
trimmed at the sides with a frill of gold and silver, made in squares, with
bobbins.
The Cavaliere Antonio Merli, in his interesting pamphlet on Italian
lace,[149] mentions an account preserved in the Municipal Archives of
Ferrara, dated 1469, as probably referring to lace;[150] but he more
especially brings forward a document of the Sforza family, dated[151] 1493,
in which the word _trina_ (under its ancient form "tarnete") constantly
occurs,[152] together with bone and bobbin lace.
PLATE XI
[Illustration: ITALIAN. POINT PLAT DE VENISE. NEEDLE-POINT.--Seventeenth
century. Length, 25 in.; width, 16 in. Victoria and Albert Museum.]
_To face page 46._
{47}Again, the Florentine poet, Firenzuola, who wrote from 1520-30,
composed an elegy upon a collar of raised point, made by the hand of his
mistress.
Cavaliere Merli cites, as the earliest known painting in which lace occurs,
a majolica disc, after the style of the Della Robbia family, in which,
surrounded by a wreath of fruit, is represented the half figure of a lady,
dressed in a rich brocade, with a collar of white lace. The costume is of
the fifteenth century; but as Luca della Robbia's descendants worked to a
later period, the precise date of the work cannot be fixed.
Evidences of white lace, or passement, are said to appear in the pictures
of Carpaccio, in the gallery at Venice, and in another by the Gentile
Bellini, where the dress of one of the ladies is trimmed round the neck
with a white lace.[153] The date of this last painting is 1500.
Lace was made throughout Italy mostly by the nuns,[154] and expressly for
the service of the Church. Venice was celebrated for her points, while
Genoa produced almost exclusively pillow-lace.
The laces best known in the commercial world in the earlier periods were
those of Venice, Milan, and Genoa.
VENICE.
Mrs. Termagant: "I'll spoil your point de Venise for you."--Shadwell,
_Squire of Alsatia_.
"Elle n'avoit point de mouchoir,
Mais un riche et tres beau peignoir
Des plus chers de point de Venise
En negligeance elle avoit mise."
_Les Combats_, etc., 1663.
The Venetian galleys, at an early period, bore to England "apes, sweet
wines," and other articles of luxury. They brought also the gold-work of
"Luk," Florence, "Jeane," {48}and Venice.[155] In our early parliamentary
records are many statutes on the subject. The Italians were in the habit of
giving short lengths, gold thread of bad quality, and were guilty of sundry
other peccadilloes, which greatly excited the wrath of the nation. The
balance was not in England's favour.
"Thei bare the gold out of this land
And sowkethe the thrifte out of our hande
As the waspe sowkethe the honey of the be."
It was these cheating Venetians who first brought over their points into
England.
In Venice itself, extravagance in lace was restrained in 1542, by a
sumptuary law, forbidding the metal laces embroidered in silk to be wider
than _due dita_ (_i.e._, about two inches). This interference is highly
Venetian, and was intended to protect the nobles and citizens from injuring
themselves and setting a bad example.
At the coronation of Richard III., "fringes of Venice," and "mantil laces
of white silk and Venys gold" appear, and twenty years later Elizabeth of
York disburses sundry sums for "gold of Venice" and "other
necessaries."[156] The queen's accounts are less explicit than those of her
royal predecessor; and though a lace is ordered for the king's mantle of
the Garter, for which she paid sixteen shillings, the article may have been
of home manufacture.
From this time downwards appear occasional mention of partlets,[157] knit
caul fashion, of Venice gold, and of white thread,[158] of billament lace
of Venice, in silver and black silk.[159] It is not, however, till the
reign of Elizabeth[160] that Italian cut-works and Venice lace came into
general use. These points found their way into France about the same
period, though we hear little of them.
PLATE XII
[Illustration: ITALIAN. POINT DE VENISE À RÉSEAU.--The upper ones are of
yellow silk; a chalice veil, with dove and olive branch, and possibly an
altar border. Probably late seventeenth century. The lower is thread, early
eighteenth century. Width, 2 in. In private collections.
Photos by A. Dryden.]
_To face page 48._
{49}Of "point couppé" there is mention, and enough, in handkerchiefs for
Madame Gabrielle, shirts for the king, and fraizes for La Reine Margot; but
whether they be of Venice or worked in France, we are unenlightened. The
works of Vinciolo[161] and others had already been widely circulated, and
laces and point couppé now formed the favourite occupation of the ladies.
Perhaps one of the earliest records of point de Venise will be found in a
ridiculous historiette of Tallemant des Réaux, who, gossiping of a certain
Madame de Puissieux,[162] writes: "On m'assuroit qu'elle mangeoit du point
coupé. Alors les points de Gênes, de Raguse, ni d'Aurillac ni de Venise
n'étoient point connus et on dit qu'au sermon elle mangea tout le derrière
du collet d'un homme qui etoit assis devant elle." On what strange events
hang the connecting threads of history!
By 1626 foreign "dentelles et passements au fuseau" were declared
contraband. France paying large sums of money to other countries for lace,
the Government, by this ordinance, determined to remedy the evil. It was at
this period that the points of Venice were in full use.[163]
"To know the age and pedigrees
Of points of Flanders and Venise"[164]
would, in the latter case, have been more difficult, had it not been for
the pattern-books so often quoted.
The earliest points, as we already know, soon passed from the stiff
formality of the "Gotico" into the flowing lines of the Renaissance, and
into that fine patternless guipure which is, _par excellence_, called Point
de Venise.[165]
In the islands of the Lagune there still lingers a tale of the first origin
of this most charming production.
A sailor youth, bound for the Southern Seas, brought home to his betrothed
a bunch of that pretty coralline (Fig. 20) known to the unlearned as the
mermaid's lace.[166] The girl, a worker in points, struck by the graceful
nature of the seaweed, with its small white knots united, as it were, by
{50}a "bride," imitated it with her needle, and after several unsuccessful
trials produced that delicate guipure which before long became the taste of
all Europe.
It would be difficult to enumerate the various kinds of lace produced by
Venice in her palmy days.
The Cavaliere Merli has endeavoured to classify them according to the names
in the pattern-books with which Venice supplied the world, as well as with
her points. Out of some sixty of these works, whose names have been
collected, above one-third were published in Venice.[167]
[Illustration: Fig. 20.
MERMAID'S LACE.]
1. Punto a reticella.[168]--Made either by drawing the threads of the
cloth, as in the samplar already given (Fig. 5), or by working the lace on
a parchment pattern in buttonhole stitch (punto smerlo). (Fig. 21.) This
point is identical with what is commonly called "Greek" lace.
Under this head comes punto reale (the opposite of reticella), where the
linen ground is left and the design cut out.[169] Punto di cartella or
cordella (card-work) is similar in effect to reticella, but the
button-holing is done entirely over a foundation made by sewing coarse
thread and bits of parchment on to the design and covering them with
button-hole stitch.
[Illustration: Fig. 21.
Reticella.]
_To face page 50._
{51}2. Punto tagliato.[170]--Cut-work, already described.
3. Punto di Venezia.
4. Punto in aria.[171]--Worked on a parchment pattern, the flowers
connected by brides: in modern parlance, Guipure.
5. Punto tagliato a fogliami.[172]--The richest and most complicated of all
points, executed like the former, only with this difference, that all the
outlines are in relief, formed by means of cottons placed inside to raise
them. Sometimes they are in double and triple relief; an infinity of
beautiful stitches are introduced into the flowers, which are surrounded by
a pearl of geometric regularity, the pearls sometimes in scallops or
"campané," as the French term it.[173] This is our Rose (raised) Venice
point, the Gros Point de Venise, the Punto a relievo, so highly prized and
so extensively used for albs, collerettes, berthes, and costly decoration.
We give an example (Fig. 23) from a collar, preserved in the Musée de
Cluny, once the property of a Venetian nobleman, worn only on state
occasions.
Two elaborate specimens were in the possession of Mr. Webb; one is a long
narrow piece fringed at both ends, which may have served as a maniple (Fig.
26); the other, a "pale"[174] for the communion, he has given to the
Victoria and Albert Museum.
These two last are made of silk of the natural cream colour. Both silk and
thread unbleached appear to have been greatly in favour. At Paris much lace
of this colour has been disposed of by its owners since the revolutions in
Italy.[175]
Other varieties of so-called rose point are punto neve (point de neige),
with its ground of starred threads resembling snowflakes, and the coral
point, a small irregular pattern supposed to have been copied from coral.
{52}6. Punto a gropo, or gropari.[176]--Groppo, or gruppo, signifies a
knot, or tie, and in this lace the threads are knotted together, like the
fringes of the Genoese macramè.[177] After this manner is made the trimming
to the linen scarfs or cloths which the Roman peasants wear folded square
over the head, and hanging down the back. (Fig. 22.)
[Illustration: Fig. 22.
PUNTO A GROPO (Knotted Point).]
7. Punto a maglia quadra.--Lacis; square netting,[178] the modano of the
Tuscans. (Fig. 24.)
[Illustration: Fig. 23.
GROS POINT DE VENISE.--From the Collar of a Venetian Nobleman. Musée de
Cluny, Paris. 16th century.
N.B.--This drawing makes the work and design appear heavier than it is in
reality.
_To face page 52._]
{53}This Tuscan sort was not generally embroidered; the pattern consists in
knitting the meshes together in different shapes. It was much used for
hangings of beds, and those curtains placed across the windows, called
_stores_ by the French, and by the Italians, _stuora_.[179]
8. Burato.--The word means a stiff cloth or canvas (_toille clere_ of
Taglienti, 1527), on which the pattern is embroidered, reducing it to a
kind of rude lace. One of the pattern-books[180] is devoted exclusively to
the teaching of this point.
[Illustration: Fig. 24.
PUNTO A MAGLIA (Lacis)]
The needle-made laces fabricated at Burano will be noticed later.
9. Punto tirato--Drawn work.[181] Fig. 25 is a lace ground {54}made by
drawing the threads of muslin (_fili tirati_).[182] The present specimen is
simple in design, but some are very complicated and beautiful.
The ordinance of Colbert must have inflicted a serious injury on the Venice
lace trade, which, says Daru, "occupoit la population de la capitale." In
_Britannia Languens_, a discourse upon trade, London, 1680,[183] it is said
that the laces commonly called Points de Venise now come mostly from
France, and amount to a vast sum yearly.
Savary, speaking of the thread laces termed Venice point in the early part
of the eighteenth century,[184] says, "The French no longer purchase these
articles, having established themselves manufactures which rival those of
the Adriatic."
[Illustration: Fig. 25.
PUNTO TIRATO (Drawn Lace).]
Still the greater number of travellers[185] make a provision of points in
their passage through Venice, and are usually cheated, writes a traveller
about this period.[186] He recommends his friend, Mr. Claude Somebody, a
French dealer, who probably paid him in ruffles for the advertisement.
[Illustration: Fig. 26.
POINT DE VENISE À BRIDES PICOTÉES.--Early 18th century.
_To Face page 54._]
{55}Our porte-bouquets and lace-trimmed nosegays are nothing new. On the
occasion of the annual visit of the Doge to the Convent delle Vergini, the
lady abbess with the novices received him in the parlour, and presented him
with a nosegay of flowers placed in a handle of gold, and trimmed round
with the finest lace that Venice could produce.[187]
[Illustration: Fig. 27.
VENICE POINT.]
Fynes Moryson[188] is the earliest known traveller who alludes to the
products of Venice. "Venetian ladies in general," he says, "wear a standing
collar and ruffs close up to the chin; the unmarried tie their hair with
gold and silver lace." Evidently the collars styled "bavari," for which
Vecellio[189] gives patterns "all' usanza Veneziana," were {56}not yet in
general vogue.[190] The Medici collars were supported by fine metal bars
called "verghetti," which were so much in demand that the inhabitants of a
whole quarter of Venice were engaged in their production, and the name
which it still bears was given to it in consequence.
[Illustration: Fig. 28.
GROS POINT DE VENISE.--(First half of 17th century.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 29.
POINT DE VENISE.--End of 17th century.]
[Illustration: Fig. 30.
POINT PLAT DE VENISE.--Middle of 17th century.
_To face page 56._]
{57}Fifty years later, Evelyn speaks of the veils of glittering taffetas,
worn by the Venetian ladies, to the corners of which hang broad but curious
tassels of point laces.
According to Zedler, an author who wrote about lace in 1742, the price of
Venice point in high relief varied from one to nine ducats per Italian ell.
The Venetians, unlike the Spaniards, thought much of their fine linen and
the decorations pertaining to it. "La camicia preme assai più del
giubbone," ran the proverb--"La chemise avant le pourpoint." Young nobles
were not allowed to wear lace on their garments until they put on the robe,
which they usually did at the age of five-and-twenty, on being admitted to
the council.[191]
Towards 1770, the Venice ladies themselves commenced to forsake the fabrics
of their native islands; for on the marriage of the Doge's son, in that
year, we read that, although the altar was decorated with the richest
Venice point, the bride and her ladies wore their sleeves covered up to the
shoulders with falls of the finest Brussels lace, and a tucker of the same
material.[192]
During the carnival, however, the people, both male and female, wore a
camail, or hood of black lace, covering the chin up to the mouth, called a
"bauta."[193] It was one of these old black lace hoods that Walpole
describes Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as wearing at Florence, 1762, in place
of a cap.
_Point de Venise à réseau_ is chiefly distinguished by the conventional
treatment of the flowers and ornament, and a general flat look of the work.
The outlining thread or cordonnet is stitched to the edge of the pattern
and worked in flatly. A minute border to the cordonnet of small meshes
intervenes between it and the réseau, which is of square {58}meshes and
always very fine. Whether the lace was derived from the Alençon, and was
the result of an attempt to win back the custom the French manufacturers
were taking away from Venice, or whether it was Alençon that imitated the
Venetian réseau, is a moot point, but certain it is that the Venetian
product surpassed in fineness both Alençon and Brussels. Its very delicacy
has been its destruction, so that very few specimens of this lace survive.
Plate XII.
_Mezzo Punto_, or mixed Venetian guipure, was a mixed point lace, of which
the scrolls and flowers were outlined in pillow-lace, or by a tape, and the
designs filled in with needle fillings, and connected by pearled brides on
a coarse needle-made réseau. This variety of lace was sometimes made of
silk. In point de Venise, flat or raised, the pattern is always connected
by an irregular network of pearled brides. Real brides connecting the
flowers here and there hardly ever occur; and the number of picots attached
to one single branch of the bride network never exceeds two. The
elaborately ornamental detached brides and a multiplicity of picots are
characteristic of "Spanish point" and early point de France.