and requirements of their picturesque, multi-colored national costumes. In this connection it is well to recall the words of Morryson, penned in 1868, that “The Bohemian women delight in black cloth with laces of bright color.” The background of black strikingly offset the excellent design, workmanship and quality of the laces.
It is seriously contended that the art of lace making originated in Venice. The authority usually cited in support of this contention is Christopher Floshever, who in 1562 published an exhaustive treatise on laces. The Venetian merchant princes of this period were recognized as the world’s foremost traders; they were resourceful, shrewd and very successful. They were the first to recognize in laces a useful article of commerce and introduced them into the Germanic countries early in the sixteenth century.
The Slav women of the fourteenth century were well versed in the art of lacemaking, for they engaged in weaving luxuriant and beautiful “laces,” oftentimes carrying out a motif in silver or gold thread for the embellishment of their elaborate costumes. According to Winter the art of lacemaking was well developed in the fifteenth century, when the young women made “delicate and handsome laces.”
In Russia we find that georgeous and priceless laces were produced in the thirteenth century. Near Moscow is the Trojicko-Sergievskoj Monastery. In its crypts repose the remains of many saints of the Russian church. Their bodies are clothed in robes trimmed with lace unquestionably made in the fifteenth century and which were made on a foundation of net.
In the far southern Slav country, Dalmatia, in the monastery of Dritti, is preserved a priestly robe trimmed with exquisite laces which are universally acknowledged to be rare and priceless. They are the product of Dalmatian women and their style was very favorably known, far and wide, as “Point de Ragusa.”
It is rather singularly significant that the laces illustrated in Floshever’s book so strikingly resemble in design the laces of the Slavonians, particularly those in which net is used as a background.
In Russia laces having net for a foundation were made a century before this style and method of production came into general use in the West European countries.
The Slavs made their laces without previously prepared designs, without the aid of pins, but solely from memory, while the West European countries required the drawings and pins. When we consider the different conditions under which the laces were made we are at once forcibly impressed with the high qualiy of the Slavonic product.
As a further proof that lace making is an ancient Slavonian accomplishment let us look to the people’s dress. Queen Anne, the wife of King Charles the Fourth of Bohemia, is portrayed by a contemporary painter as being dressed in a gown elaborately trimmed with rich laces. Charles was an ardent nationalist and it is certain that his wife used only Bohemian laces. Anne, their daughter, married Richard, King of England, in 1381. Her wedding gown was trimmed with handsome laces of Slav origin. Incidentally she introduced the first pins into England, which theretofore were entirely unknown in that country.
The present dress of the Slovaks of lower Czechoslovakia resembles in design, color and trimming the dress worn by the Slavs of Europe in the early ages. If we compare the description made by Adam Bremsky of the dress of the Slavs in 1070 with the costume worn by the Slovaks of today we are convinced that they are almost identical. If the Slovak costume of this age is an exact counterpart of the Slavonian dress of the eleventh century then may we not assume, and properly too, that the Slavonians were well versed in the art of lace making? In both periods lace forms an important embellishment of the costume.
But let us examine extraneous evidence. In Italy, in the sixteenth century, we find the highest development and greatest appreciation of laces. In 1580 Cesare Vecellio published an illustrated volume of costumes of the period. It was entitled “Habiti Antichi e Moderni” (Dresses Ancient and Modern). One of the plates represents a stately Venetian lady attired in an elaborate costume profusely trimmed with rich laces. Its caption is ‘Schiavonesco” (Slavonian). Thus we find that the Venetians regarded, admired and used the laces of the Slavs. These must have possessed artistic qualities or the Venetians would not have used them.
