Long ago a Venetian seafarer brought his
beloved a gift of seaweed from the far, distant seas. She wanted to preserve
the memento forever, so she painstakingly copied the delicate outline and
patterns using her needle and thread. . .
So goes the legend of
how lacemaking began in Venice and its surrounding islands, now renown for the
art. Once, Venice and Burano Island were the lacemaking capitals of Europe.
Other than its lacemaking, Burano Island is known as a fishing community. It is
easy to see how the women of Burano – accustomed to sewing and repairing
fishing nets – could take to the fine art of lace. Together, Venice and Burano
filled orders for coronation robes and papal vestments as well as personal
adornments for aristocrats and wealthy merchants across the continent.
Once, large workshops
of women worked long days and nights like armies of spiders to create their
diaphanous web-like creations. Today, sadly, handmade needle-lace is a dying
artform. A few, often older women, sit stooped in their chairs with a pillow on
their laps working on intricate borders and sewn ornaments.
Like most legends, the
fisherman’s gift of seaweed to his paramour has a kernel of truth in it, but
that kernel has been embellished with a dash of romanticism and a splash of
whimsy. The kernel of truth is that lacemaking came to Venice from across the
Mediterranean Sea – from Cyprus. The
missing bit is that the origin of lacemaking can be traced to more than two
millennia earlier in Egypt’s 18th Dynasty.
The earliest (and
simplest) precursor of lace can be found in Egyptian mummy cloths. There
sheet-like garments were used to wrap the dead in preparation for their journey
to the afterlife and were usually made of finely woven linen decorated with
fringes. Some mummy cloths had drawn thread work on them in which warp threads
had been removed and embellishments added in the holes left by the missing
threads.
Herodotus tells us
that Pharaoh Amasis of Egypt (570 BC – 526 BC) sent finely woven linen to the
Spartans, which, was made of no less than 360 threads (iii. 47); the figures
woven on this cloth (drawn-thread or open work) were partly of linen and partly
of gold thread. Herodotus also mentions a wonderful pallium sent by the same
king to the shrine of Athene at Lindus. Amasis is also important in the
lacemaking story for incorporating Cyprus
into his kingdom.
By the Greco-Roman
period, beginning in the 4th Century BCE, intricate selvedge borders routinely
decorated the edges of mummy cloths and sometimes, complex beadworking
decorated the hems of the cloths. It is easy to see how the patterning of the
beads could be translated to stitch patterns for later lace borders.
Modern Macrame
Flash forward a
thousand years and the Arabs are producing woven macramé. It is difficult to
determine Cypriot Lefkara lace is a direct descendant of Egyptian drawn and
open work or whether the Arab macramé tradition was an important influence on
that development.
Either way, Venice
begins its control of Cyprus as
early as the late 12th Century. Although this is often called the “Frankish
period”, Venice was the hidden hand in ruling the island, until taking direct
control in 1481. It is probably during the Frankish period that the art of
lacemaking is introduced.
As early as the end of
the 14th Century, the Dogaresse Morosini (Doge Michele Morosini) begins to
promote the art of lacemaking by forming a workshop of more than 130 women to create
personal lace adornments for her and the nobility of allied states and
countries in the form of gifts. Another Dogaresse, Giovanna Dandolo, wife of
Doge Pasquale Malipiero protected and encouraged lacemaking in 1414 and soon
lace had spread throughout Europe and become a fashion necessity for those who
could afford it.
Today some five
stitches are routinely done on Burano Island: Venetian, Rose Point, Point de
Gaze, Alencon, and Argentan. This indicates a decrease from the 20th Century
when Flowered Lace (Tagliato a fogliami) and Brussels point were also commonly
used.
So, a artform that began in Egypt’s 18th Dynasty persists to this day in
Venice’s nearby Burano Island. It is an art that is hanging on ‘by a thread’
and may soon be gone given the age of its masters both in Venice and Cyprus. To me, however, it is a voice
from the Western Silk Road that continues to echo today. (Words by Laura
Kelley; Photo of Burano Lacemaker by Laura Kelley, Photos of Mummy Cloths and
Beadwork from the British Museum, Photo of Modern Macrame from Google Images
and Photo of Lefkara Lace from Wikimedia.)
Source:
Venice and the Silk Road: The Ancient World – Lace
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