Click here for other foreign bobbin lacemaking.
Click here for English bobbin Lace.
I don't know much about Italian lace, but what I do know is on this page. Please contact me to point out mistakes!
Language: Italian
Paintings of Italian lacemakers: (click on links to see pictures)
Women sewing lace (1720's) by Giacomo Antonio Melchiorre Ceruti - detail above.
Venetian Lacemakers (1887) by Robert Frederick Blum
Lacemakers in Venice (1894) by Anders Zorn
Those paintings show details of lace equipment used in Italy.
Italian lacemaking terms:
Maglia di Spagna (mesh of Spain): twisted hole ground
Bobbin lace evolved from braid-making in 16th century Italy. The Nuw Modelbuch (New pattern book) was printed in Zurich in 1561. It says that making lace was brought to Zurich from Italy in about 1536. In the 17th century, the textile centers of Flanders and Normandy eclipsed Italy as the premiere sources for fine bobbin lace.
© Jo Edkins 2017 - return to lace index