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.
"Encor pour vous poincts de Raguse
Il est bon, crainte d'attentat,
D'en vouloir purger un Estat;
Les gens aussi fins que vous estes
Ne sont bons que comme vous faites
Pour ruiner les Estats."—La Révolte des Passemens.
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.
Fig. 39.
Silk Gimp Lace.
Though no manufacture of thread lace is known at Ragusa, yet much gold and silver lace is made for ornamenting the bodices of the peasants. They still also fabricate a kind of silk lace or gimp, made of twisted threads of cotton covered with metal, which is sewn down the seams of the coats and the bodices of the peasantry. The specimen, illustrated in Fig. 39, may possibly be the old, long-lost point de Raguse. Its resemblance, with its looped edges, to the pattern given from Le Pompe,[259] published at Venice in 1557, is very remarkable. We have seen specimens from Italy and Turkey.
Plate XXV.
Sicilian. Old Drawn-work.—Height, 12 in.
Photo by A. Dryden from Salviati & Co.'s Collection.
Plate XXVI.
South Italian.—The upper one is seventeenth century Church lace—réseau of threads twisted into star-shaped meshes. The three lower are considered eighteenth century Cretan. All pillow made of thread and silk. Widths: 2, 2½, 1¾, 3¾ in.
Victoria and Albert Museum.
To face page 84.
The conventionally termed Greek lace is really the Italian reticella. "The designs of the earliest Greek laces were all geometrical, the oldest being simple outlines worked over ends or threads left after others had been drawn or cut. Next in date come the patterns which had the outlines further ornamented with half circles, triangles, or wheels. Later, open-work with thick stitches was produced."
Fig. 40.
Reticella, or Greek Lace.—(Zante.)
The principal seats of the manufacture were the Ionian Isles, Zante, Corfu, Venice, Naples, Rome, Florence and Milan. The Ionian Islands for many years belonged to Venice, which accounts for the similarity in the manufacture. Fig. 40 is from a specimen purchased in the Island of Zante. This lace was much in vogue in Naples for curtains, bed-hangings, and coverlets, and even formed a substitute for tapestry. A room hung with bands of Greek lace, alternated with crimson or amber silk, has a most effective appearance.
The church lace of the Ionian Isles was not appreciated by the natives, who were only too glad to dispose of it to the English officers in garrison at Corfu. "Much is still found in Cephalonia: the natives bring it on board the steamers for sale, black with age, and unpleasant to the senses. This is not to be wondered at when we consider that it is taken from the tombs, where for centuries it has adorned the grave-clothes of some defunct Ionian. This hunting the catacombs has now become a regular trade. It is said that much coarse lace of the same kind is still made in the islands, steeped either in coffee or some drug, and, when thus discoloured, sold as from the tombs" (1869).
The Greek islands now fabricate lace from the fibre of the aloe, and a black lace similar to the Maltese. In Athens, and other parts of Greece proper, a white silk lace is made, mostly consumed by the Jewish Church.
CRETE.
Pillow-lace making in Crete would seem to have arisen in consequence of Venetian intercourse with the island. "The Cretan laces[260] were chiefly of silk, which seems to point to a cultivation of silk in the island, as well as to its importation from