EARLY LUCCHESE FABRICS

m

» -i ft

rvs

tsaOstoa

Fig. 29.—Moorish Brocade, Granada. Red ground ; ornament white, pale yellow,

and green ; secondary pattern purple. XV Century

still show forms due to Moorish influence, though they date fromthe 15th century.

Granada, Malaga, Almeria, and Toledo were the chief centresof the later weaving industry in Spain.

In 1266 the Palermo weaving industry came abruptly to anend, through the Conquest of Sicily by the French, under Charles ofAnjou, when the skilled weavers, carrying their splendid tradition ofdesign and craftsmanship with them, migrated to Italy.

ITALIAN WEAVING—LUCCA

Italy, at this period (the 13th century), consisted of many indepen-dent States actively engaged in commerce and in the industrial arts,and keenly alive to the commercial and political advantages to bederived from an increase in such an important industry as that ofweaving. Hence we find that a ready welcome was given to theSicilian weavers in Calabria and other Southern States, but moreespecially in the North, where at Lucca they carried on theirtraditional craft of weaving beautiful and distinctive patterned fabrics.

Necessarily these early Lucchese fabrics have many of thecharacteristic features of the later Palermitan ones, rendering itsomewhat difficult to distinguish between them; but gradually theSicilian distinctive patterning of animal and bird forms was elimin-ated, and although many of the essential features of the Sicilianpatterns were retained, a new phase of design was entered upon bythe use of boldly designed serrated leaf or floral forms and ogivalbands, probably derived from Persia.

Representative examples of the early fabrics of Lucca are givenon plates-36—3 7.

55