"Margaret: I saw the Duchess of Milan's gown that they praise so.
"Hero: O that exceeds, they say.
"Margaret: By my troth, it's but a night-gown in respect of yours; cloth o' gold and cuts, and laced with silver."—Much Ado about Nothing, iv. 1.
One of the earliest records of Italian lace belongs to Milan, and occurs in an instrument of partition between the sisters Angela and Ippolita Sforza Visconti, dated 1493 (see Venice).
This document is of the highest interest as giving the inventory of an Italian wardrobe of the fifteenth century. In it, amidst a number of curious entries, are veils of good network, with cambric pillow-cases, linen sheets, mosquito curtains and various articles, worked a reticella and a groppi, with the needle, bobbins, bones, and other different ways[[196]] mentioned in the pattern-books of the following century.
Among other items we find, "Half of a bundle containing patterns for ladies' work."[[197]]
Though the fabric of these fine points dates back for so many centuries, there is little notice of them elsewhere. Henry VIII. is mentioned as wearing one short pair of hose of purple silk of Venice gold, woven like a caul, edged with a passamaine lace of purple silk and gold, worked at Milan.[[198]]
In a wardrobe account of Lord Hay, gentleman of his Majesty's robes, 1606,[[199]] is noted down to James I., "One suit with cannons thereunto of silver lace, shadowed with silk Milan lace."
Again, among the articles furnished against the "Queen's lying down," 1606, in the bills of the Lady Audrye Walsingham,[[200]] is an entry of "Lace, Milan fashion, for child's waistcoat."
A French edict, dated March, 1613, against superfluity in dress, prohibiting the wearing of gold and silver embroidery, specially forbids the use of all "passement de Milan, ou façon de Milan" under a penalty of one thousand livres.[[201]] The expression "à point de Milan" occurs in the statutes of the passementiers of Paris.[[202]]