So numerous are the different types of Italian peasant jewels that it is impossible to mention them all. Every small district, nay, every township, seems to have possessed ornaments that differed in some detail from those of its neighbours. Many of them display reminiscences of the antique. Their manufacture follows—or did till quite recent years—the old methods; the natives of certain out-of-the-way districts in Umbria still working in very much the same manner as the ancient Etruscans. All ornaments are somewhat voluminous. The head is uncovered, and presents an extensive field for hair-ornaments. The Lombards have all sorts of hair-pins, often a couple of dozen, stuck in nimbus fashion, and through them crosswise is passed another pin with an oval head at each end. Earrings are likewise of considerable dimensions, but light in spite of their size. Their surfaces are very frequently set with seed pearls. The finest existing collection of Italian peasant jewellery is that in the Victoria and Albert Museum, purchased from Signor Castellani in 1867. Of great beauty is the jewellery of the shores of the Adriatic, and that of the Greek Islands, probably made by descendants of the Venetian goldsmiths, and commonly known by the title of "Adriatic" jewellery (Pl. LIV). It is of thin gold, on which are shallow cells filled with opaque enamels. Crescent-shaped earrings are formed of pendent parts hung with double pearls. Dating from the seventeenth century are elaborate and delicate pendants in the shape of fully rigged ships enriched with painted enamel and hung with clusters of pearls. Beautiful work of a similar nature was also produced in Sicily.
PLATE LIV
"adriatic" jewellery
Hungarian and Spanish peasant ornaments have already been alluded to. In both these countries we find the native filigree enamel in sixteenth-century work, and painted enamel in that of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Spanish jewellery frequently takes the form of pendent reliquaries. It is usually of stout silver filigree, bearing traces of Moorish design. The Moorish style is also felt on Portuguese jewellery, which displays in addition a certain amount of what appears to be Indian influence. It is composed of gold filigree of very fine workmanship. Earrings and neck-chains are of such proportions that they reach respectively to the shoulders and the waist. In addition to the cross, star, heart, and crescent-shaped pendants are worn. A favourite form is one resembling an inverted artichoke. Openings are left in its surface, and within these spaces and on the edges of the jewel are hung little trembling pendants (Pl. LIII, 2). Portuguese jewellery of the eighteenth century, largely set with crystal, is admirably represented in the Museum of Fine Arts at Lisbon.
CHAPTER XXXV
JEWELLERY IN PICTURES