56

HISTORY OF LACE.

dress represented in varied marbles. In the villa of PrinceValguarnera, near Palermo, were some years since many of thesestrange productions with rich laces of coffee-coloured point, ad-mirably chiselled, it must bo owned, in giallo antico, the longflowing ruffles and head-tires of the ladies being reproduced inwhite alabaster. 70

GENOA.

“ Genova la Superba.”

“ Lost,—A rich needle work called Poynt Jean, a yard and a half long and halfquarter broad .”—The Intelligencer, Feb. 29, 1663.

“ Genoa, for points .”—Grand Tour, 1756.

The art of making gold thread, already known to the Etrus-cdns, took a singular development in Italy during the fourteenthcentury.

Genoa 71 first imitated the gold threads of Cyprus. Luccafollowed in her wake, while Venice and Milan appear much laterin the field. Gold of Jeane formed, as already mentioned, an•item in our early statutes. The merchants mingled the pure goldwith Spanish “ laton,” producing a sort of “ faux galon,” sucli as isused for theatrical purposes in the present day. They made alsosilver and gold lace out of drawn wire, after the fashion of thosediscovered, not long since, at Herculaneum.

When Skippin visited Turin, in lfi51, he describes the mannerof preparing the metal wire. The art maintained itself latest atMilan, but died out towards the end of the seventeenth century.

In the wardrobe of Mary de Medicis is enumerated, amongother articles, a “mouchoir de point de Gennes frise.” 73

Moryson, who visited the Republic in 1589, declares “theGenoese wear no lace or gardes.”

Genoa was as celebrated for its pillow lace as Venice for itsneedle-made. The characteristic of this lace was its design, akind of barleycorn-shaped pattern, radiating into rosettes from a

72 Brydone, “Tour through Sicily,”1773.

71 “ From the tax-books preserved inthe Archives of S. George, it appearsthat a tax upon gold thread of fourdanari upon every lira in value of theworked material was levied, which

between It 11 and 1420 amounted toL. 73,387. From which period this in-dustry rapidly declined, and the workersemigrated.”— Merli.

72 Garderobe de feue Madame, 1646.Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,426.