34

HISTORY OK LACK.

CHAPTER IV.

ITALY.

“It grazed on my shoulder, trikes me away six parts of an Italian outwork bandI wore, cost me three pounds in the Exchange but three dnys before.”

Ben Jonson, Every Man Out of his Humour , 1509.

“ Ruffles well wrought and fine fulling bands of Italian outwork.”

Fair Maid of the Exchange, 1027.

The Italians claim the invention of point or needle-made lace.It has been suggested that they derived the art of fine needleworkfrom the Greeks who took refuge in Italy from the troubles of theLower Empire; and what further confirms its Byzantine originis, that those very places which kept up the closest intercoursewith the Greek Empire are the cities where point lace wasearliest made and flourished to the greatest extent . 1

A modern Italian author , 2 on the other hand, asserts thatthe Italians learned embroidery from the Saracens of Sicily,as the Spaniards acquired the art from the Moors of Granadaor Seville, and brings forward, as proof of his theory, that theword “ to embroider,” both in Italian and Spanish , 3 is derivedfrom the Arabic, and no similar word exists in any other Europeanlanguage.

This theory may apply to embroidery, but certainly not tolace, for how could the Easterns teach an art of which they wereignorant themselves ? With the exception of the Turkish crochet,“ oyah,” and some darned netting and drawn-work which occur onPersian and Chinese tissues, there is nothing approaching to laceto be found in any article of Oriental manufacture.

Leaving to the learned these doubtful disputations, we proceedto show that evidences of lace appear in Italy as early as thefifteenth century.

i “Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth dell’ Arte del Ricamo,” Padova, 1819.Century,” Sir Digby Wyatt. 3 Rieamare, Recamar.

= Fi anceseo Nardi, “Sull’ Origine