The two examples of buratto work in the following plate, Plate [18], are much more finely worked with punto a rammendo. The narrow border is probably the earliest.
Alençon has certainly more romantic associations than any other lace-producing town. For the making of lace at Alençon did not begin only with the establishment of that industry in 1660, of which I shall speak later. More than a century before that date Marguérite d'Angoulême, Duchess of Alençon, and afterwards Queen of Navarre, while living at her castle of Alençon, worked and caused to be worked, beautiful ornaments for albs and other articles for use at the altar of St. Leonard's, her parish church. Some of these are preserved in the Alençon Museum; a specimen of early lacis is especially interesting, worked in squares with radiating threads, and the centres worked with punto a stuora as in Plate [17]. The specimen of lacis, with gold thread introduced similar to that in Plate [15], may very likely be the very piece alluded to by Clément Marot in his odes to Queen Marguérite. She died in 1549.
"Elle adonnait son courage
A faire maint bel ouvrage
Dessus la toile et encore a
Joindre la soie et or."
"Vous d'un pareil exercice
Mariez par artifice
Dessus la toile a maint tract
L'or et la soie en pourtract."
Another interesting record of this Queen is to be found in a manuscript of the expenses of "Madame Marguérite," sister of the King (Francis I.). "For 60 yards fine Florence lace for her collars."[M] This lace was probably fine punto in aria worked in points, as in Plate [30], but it may, of course, also have been bobbin-made lace similar to the edging in Plate [29].
The earliest example of tela tirata here is a piece representing St. Francis of Assisi and events of his life, Plate [19]. Under the saint's feet is an inscription imperfectly rendered by the pious worker. St. Michael is above, and still higher is the Madonna and many emblems or perhaps fancies of the worker. This lace may have been worked in Assisi itself in the thirteenth or fourteenth century.
Another early specimen has a man in armour with a helmet of thirteenth-century shape. See Plate [20].
Another piece, Plate [21], which is very fine and was no doubt worked for a wedding, represents a bride and bridegroom standing dressed in sixteenth-century costume and surrounded by attendants. Below is a hawking party with dogs.
The infant's swaddling band, Plate [22], is interesting, as these bands are no longer ornamented.
The specimen of tela tirata No. 1, in Plate [25], is of singular make, the whole piece to be worked being prepared by drawing threads at regular intervals. These same threads are then darned in with a needle to form the pattern. In this specimen a small piece has been unpicked to show the way the threads were drawn before beginning the work. This method has, I believe, not hitherto been noticed, as the plan of cutting threads and leaving the pattern in the linen is more usual; but, of course, no cut threads at all remaining in the work rendered it more even and durable, and so justified the extra trouble.