The principal seats of the manufacture were the Ionian Isles, Zante, Corfu, Venice, Naples, Rome, Florence and Milan. The Ionian Islands for many years belonged to Venice, which accounts for the similarity in the manufacture. Fig. 40 is from a specimen purchased in the Island of Zante. This lace was much in vogue in Naples for curtains, bed-hangings, and coverlets, and even formed a substitute for tapestry. A room hung with bands of Greek lace, alternated with crimson or amber silk, has a most effective appearance.

The church lace of the Ionian Isles was not appreciated by the natives, who were only too glad to dispose of it to the English officers in garrison at Corfu. "Much is still found in Cephalonia: the natives bring it on board the steamers for sale, black with age, and unpleasant to the senses. This is not to be wondered at when we consider that it is taken from the tombs, where for centuries it has adorned the grave-clothes of some defunct Ionian. This hunting the catacombs has now become a regular trade. It is said that much coarse lace of the same kind is still made in the islands, steeped either in coffee or some drug, and, when thus discoloured, sold as from the tombs" (1869).

The Greek islands now fabricate lace from the fibre of the aloe, and a black lace similar to the Maltese. In Athens, and other parts of Greece proper, a white silk lace is made, mostly consumed by the Jewish Church.

CRETE.

Pillow-lace making in Crete would seem to have arisen in consequence of Venetian intercourse with the island. "The Cretan laces[[260]] were chiefly of silk, which seems to point to a cultivation of silk in the island, as well as to its importation from the neighbouring districts of Asia Minor, when laces were made there, at least one hundred years ago." In 1875, the South Kensington Museum acquired a collection of Cretan laces and embroideries, some of which (the white thread laces) bear distinct traces of Venetian influence, as, for example, those in which costumed figures are introduced. "As a rule, the motives of Cretan lace patterns are traceable to orderly arrangement and balance of simple geometric and symmetrical details, such as diamonds, triangles and quaint polygonal figures, which are displayed upon groundworks of small meshes. The workmanship is somewhat remarkable, especially that displayed in the making of the meshes for the grounds. Here we have an evidence of ability to twist and plait threads as marked, almost as that shown by the lace-makers of Brussels and Mechlin. Whether the twisting and plaiting of threads to form the meshes in this Cretan lace was done with the help of pins or fine-pointed bones, may be a question difficult to solve."

The patterns in the majority of the specimens are outlined with one, two, or three bright-coloured silken threads, which may have been worked in with the other threads as the cordonnet in Mechlin. The numerous interlacements which this cordonnet makes with the lace point also to the outline having perhaps been run in with a needle.

TURKEY.

"The Turks wear no lace or cut stuff," writes Moryson (1589), winding up with "neither do the women wear lace or cut-work on their shirts"; but a hundred and fifty years later fashions are changed in the East. The Grand Turk now issues sumptuary laws against the wearing gold lace "on clothes and elsewhere."[[261]]

A fine white silk guipure is now made in modern Turkey at Smyrna and Rhodes, oriental in its style; this lace is formed with the needle or tambour hook. Lace or passementerie of similar workmanship, called "oyah" is also executed in colours representing flowers, fruits and foliage, standing out in high relief from the ground. Numerous specimens were in the International Exhibition of 1867.

The point lace manufactured in the harems is little known and costly in price. It is said to be the only silk guipure made with the needle. Edgings of it resemble in workmanship Figs. 121 and 122.