"That decayed city, Genoa, makes much lace, but inferior to that of Flanders," states Anderson in his Origin of Commerce, 1764.
The Genoese wisely encouraged their own native manufacture, but it was now, however, chiefly for home consumption.
Savary, speaking of the Genoa fabric, says: As regards France, these points have had the same lot as those of Venice—ruined by the act of prohibition.
In 1840, there were only six lace-sellers in the city of Genoa. The women work in their own houses, receiving materials and patterns from the merchant who pays for their labour.[[234]]
Lace, in Genoa, is called pizzo. Punti in aco were not made in this city. The points of Genoa, so prized in the seventeenth century, were all the work of the pillow, a piombini,[[235]] or a mazzetta, as the Italians term it, of fine handspun thread brought from Lombardy. Silk was procured from Naples. Of this Lombardy thread were the magnificent collars of which we give an example (Fig. 35), and the fine guipures à réseau which were fashioned into aprons and fichus. The old Genoa point still finds favour in the eyes of the clergy, and on fête days, either at Genoa or Savona, may be seen splendid lace decorating the camicie of the ecclesiastics.
The Ligurian or Genoese guipures have four entirely distinctive characters. The Hispano-Moresque (or Greek) point de Gênes frisé, the Vermicelli from Rapallo and Santa Margherita, a lace resembling Milanese lace with "brides," and a fourth kind, entirely different from these varieties, called fugio (I fly), as it is very soft and airy. It is an adaptation of guipure-like ribbons of weaving, with open-work variations, held together by a very few bars. In all these laces, as in Neapolitan and Milanese lace, a crochet needle is used to join the bars and design by drawing one thread through a pin-hole in the lace and passing a free bobbin through the loop to draw the knot tight.
Fig. 35.
Genoa Point, Bobbin-made. From a collar in the possession of the Author.
This is an elaborate specimen of Point de Gênes frisé—Italian merletti a piombini. The plaits almost invariably consist of four threads.