ork ground, which was
called a lacis. Of this kind of embroidery many specimens are extant.
The Cluny Museum possesses a linen cap said to have belonged to Charles
V.; and an alb of linen drawn-thread work, supposed to have been made by
Anne of Bohemia (1527), is preserved in the cathedral at Prague.
Catherine de Medicis had a bed draped with squares of reseuil, or lacis,
and it is recorded that 'the girls and servants of her household consumed
much time in making squares of reseuil.' The interesting pattern-books
for open-ground embroidery, of which the first was published in 1527 by
Pierre Quinty, of Cologne, supply us with the means of tracing the stages
in the transition from white thread embroidery to needle-point lace. We
meet in them with a style of needle-work which differs from embroidery in
not being wrought upon a stuff foundation. It is, in fact, true lace,
done, as it were, 'in the air,' both ground and pattern being entirely
produced by the lace-maker.

The elaborate use of lace in costume was, of course, largely stimulated
by the fashion of wearing ruffs, and their companion cuffs or sleeves.
Catherine de Medicis induced one Frederic Vinciolo to come from Italy and
make ruffs and gadrooned collars, the fashion of which she started in
France; and Henry III. was so punctilious over his ruffs that he would
iron and goffer his cuffs and collars himself rather than see their
pleats limp and out of shape. The pattern-books also gave a great
impulse to the art. M. Lefebure mentions German books with patterns of
eagles, heraldic emblems, hunting scenes, and plants and leaves belonging
to Northern vegetation; and Italian books, in which the motifs consist of
oleander blossoms, and elegant wreaths and scrolls, landscapes with
mythological scenes, and hunting episodes, less realistic than the
Northern ones, in which appear fauns, and nymphs or amorini shooting
arrows. With regard to these patterns, M. Lefebure notices a curious
fact. The oldest painting in which lace is depicted is that of a lady,
by Carpaccio, who died about 1523. The cuffs of the lady are edged with
a narrow lace, the pattern of which reappears in Vecellio's Corona, a
book not published until 1591. This particular pattern was, therefore,
in use at least eighty years before it got into circulation with other
published patterns.

It was not, however, till the seventeenth century that lace acquired a
really independent character and indivi