International studio (47.1912)

Reviews and Notices


PATTERNS OF LACE WITH ARMORIAL DESIGNS. FROM
THE MALVEZZl “ BOOK OF WORK,” BOLOGNA, 1591

BOLOGNA.—The work of the “ ^Emilia
Ars ” Society has increased wonderfully
since its first beginnings in 1900. This
beautiful artistic lace work now gives
employment to over six hundred women in Bologna.
The patterns are drawn from unpublished designs
of the sixteenth century, from treasures of various
dates in the museums of Italy and other countries,
and from heirlooms in lace lent by the great ladies
who possess them. Skilled designers adapt and
combine these patterns for the new work. The
table-cover with the cross in the centre is composed
from models and Italian designs of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. The other has St.
George in the centre, and the design is derived
from a beautiful sixteenth-century chalice veil pre-
served at Siena, but the pattern has been varied
and simplified.
The four specimens shown together on this page
are exact reproductions of patterns in the Malvezzi
“ Book of Work,” printed in Bologna in 1591, and
dedicated to Margherita Gonzaga da Este, 1 )uchess
of Ferrara. In the first of them the arms are those
of the families Cassola and Marsigli. As regards
the second, the name is not given in the book, but
the arms are thought to be those of the Estensi

of Ferrara. The right to quarter the double-
headed eagle was granted to Borso d’Este by the
Emperor Frederick III. The lion as a device was
used by Leonello. In the third the arms are those
of the Sampieri and the Fantuzzi families, and in
the fourth those of the Alidosi and Isolani families.
All these names are distinguished in the history
of Bologna or of Ferrara. The designers show
wonderful skill in adapting patterns: heraldic
emblems can be introduced into table centres and
other elaborate pieces of work, making them
specially suitable for wedding and silver wedding
presents. FEmilia Ars lace is almost always the
work of the needle ; but a little bobbin lace is also
made, and is used for less important edgings.
E. E. C. J.
REVIEWS AND NOTICES.
Rambles in the Pyrenees and the Adjacent Districts.
By F. Hamilton Jackson, R.B.A. (London:
John Murray.) 21 l net.—The delicate and well-
reproduced original drawings supplementing the
excellent photographs in Mr. Jackson’s new volume
of travels give an aesthetic value to a book which is
full of fresh information concerning certain districts
on the French side of the Pyrenees with which the
ordinary tourist is but little familiar. Avoiding as
much as possible the beaten track, and when com-
pelled to follow it refraining from dwelling on its
well-known characteristics, the experienced writer
has woven into the narrative of his explorations
just enough of the history of the past to make his
account of the present intelligible. He is careful
in every case to give special prominence to the still
surviving hereditary customs and costumes that
link the modern departments, dominated by the
mountains that have looked down on so many
vicissitudes, with the ancient provinces of Gascony,
Pays de Foix, Roussillon, Bearn, and Navarre. He
notes too the peculiarities that differentiate the
people of the mountains from those of the plains,
the strong influence exercised over both by their
religion, and the bitter antagonism between the
professors of Calvinism and Roman Catholicism
that is only now, with the general decline of faith,
beginning to die out. It is, however, in his descrip-
tions of Romanesque and Gothic ecclesiastical
architecture—a subject for which he has evidently
a special predilection—that Mr. Jackson becomes
most eloquent, giving vivid impressions of typical
examples as a whole and dwelling at length on
distinctive details.
Colour Music. By A. Wallace Rimington.
169