Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/811

 LACE

731

LACE

teh lirala, has a hole in the centre through which the chain passed to hang the vessel containing the Blessed Sacrament.

Fig- 5. Point de France Made at Alen^on by \'enetian workere, about. 1670

The earliest lace-pattern books now existing are dated 1527, which proves that the art was already well known and practised, as the patterns given in these Ijooks are only practicalilc for very experienced workers. From this time in Venice began the piintn in aria, worked first as flat point and punlo avorio, and then with numberless enrichments constituting raised, or rose, point, point de neiye, or rosalline point, cater- pillar point, etc. The flowing scrolls and graceful, though always conventional flowers, are characteristic of the splendid Venetian laces. In the Victoria and Alljcrt Museum, London, is a very remarkable set of Mass vestments, chasuble, stole, maniple, and chalice veil, made entirely of the finest seventeenth-century Venetian rose point; the veil has emblems of the Blessed Sacrament, the vine, ears of corn, etc. In the same place is a splendid altar-frontal of seventeenth- century gros point de Venise.

It should be remembered that many articles made for church use in early times are much to be admired as a testimonj' to zeal and devotion. But some,

XVn Century, Pollen Collection, London such as the lace chasubles and the alb in Fig. 8, the rubrics at present in force would not approve of for use in the sanctuary. Albs and cottas should have the major part of linen; lace, to be correct, should be only twelve inches deep, as an alb flounce, and there should be no frill of lace at the neck.

Two examples of the flourishing industry of modern production of needle-point are given. Fig. 3 is a border worked at the convent at Voughal, Ireland. Fig. 4 is from the school of Burano, in Venice, patron- ized by the Holy Father, the Queen of Italy, and others.

Spanish needlepoint laces may be identified by a certain over-elaboration of design and ornaments. Much seventeenth- and eighteenth-century church lace came from Spain at the time of the Revolution and suppression of the monasteries in 1830; hence the name "Spanish point" is often given to gros point de Venise. The lace now made in Spain is distinctly de- rived and actually named from Flemish and Italian originals. Barcelona makes much silk lace.

A Venetian lace-designer was invited to France by Henry III about 1580, and lace-making was estab- lished in Auvergne. Fifty years later an edict of the Toulouse Parliament put a stop to this flourishing in- dustry, and the inhabitants of Vela.y and Le Puy were reduced to misery, but by the exertions of the Jesuit Father John Francis Regis (afterwards canonized by Clement XII) the obnoxious law was repealed, and the saint is still the patron of lace-making. Lace in those days was even technically under the protection of the Church, among the names of stitches being "Pater",

...Li;,::::

St. Fi

7. -Ill'. F TEL.V TlR.\TA

■ iiuiid of AssUi as a lectern cover, showing !ceiving the Stigmata; XV Century. Pollen Collection

"Ave Maria", "Chapelet", etc. More than 100,000 workers now make pillow lace and point Arabe, as the modern guipure is called, at Le Puy, and lace is also made in the departments of Cantal and Vienne, and at Mirecourt in the Vosges. Alen(on had an early lace- making industry, and portions of laces made for church use about 15.50 by the then Duchess of Alen<;on are now to be seen in the museum of that town. Later, the needlepoint industry of .\len(^on was founded by ^'cnctian workers imported by the State in 1665, and the magnificent point de France was the result (Fig. 5). The French modifications of Venetian design were most ambitious and ingenious, and in any im- portant piece of point de France may be found every variety of realistic design, or emblems of religion, war, or the arts, together with portraits of great personages and heraldic devices. Towards the end of the eigh- teenth century a less ambitious style was adopted, the Alen(on laces lost their Venetian character, and the designs became for the most part a series of small floral patterns. Needlepoint is still made at .Alen^on by two or three hundred workers. Pillow lace flour- ished in Belgium and Holland from the fifteenth cen- tury and attained its apogee in the eighteenth; the designs closely followed the fashions of France and Italy. Magnificent flounces for albs of Brussels point