LATE LUCCHESE FABRICS

The bold radiating flower of the pomegranate tree is thedistinctive feature of plate i, opposite page 2. This design is full ofOriental imagery, with the bird and chained dog within a boat,floating upon water on which float swans and ducks ; it is suggestiveof Persian origin.

Fig. 30 is a well-distributed ogival pattern, having a serratedflower enclosing a pair of rabbits.

Typical ogival patterns of the later Lucchese fabrics are givenon plate 37, where the vine is used as the motive of the national

Fig. 30.— Oriental Weaving. Pattern in Fig. 31.— Lucchese Pattern from Italian

gold thread on deep blue ground. Painting.

patterning. This ogival framing was suggested frequently by sym-metrically placed birds, as in fig. 31, which is from a picture bySpinello Aretino(i330-l4o8) nowin the National Gallery. Aretinowas probably also a designer for some of the later fabrics of Lucca.

This period of Lucchese industrial and artistic activity did notlast for more than fifty years, for in 1315 the Florentines laid siegeto the city and, capturing it, carried away many of the Lucchese andSicilian weavers to Florence, which now took the chief position inthe production of magnificent patterned fabrics.

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