The conquests of Alexander the Great, which extended as far as India, seem to have made the use of the products of the Eastern looms familiar among the Greeks. At a later date the conquests made by the Roman Consuls spread the arts of the East still further into Europe. At a later period still the taking of Constantinople by the Turks drove many skilful artificers to take up their residence in Italy at Venice, Genoa, and Florence, and at some towns in France; and from these centres carpets were still further distributed over Europe. The Crusades brought England into touch with the East; and specimens of carpet were probably introduced by returning knights and their followers; but it is through Spain, a country which acquired the art from the Moors, that they are first known to have come, Queen Eleanor of Castille and her suite introducing them into this country on her marriage to Edward I. Illustrations of carpets are shown in pictures of the time of Henry VIII; and in the time of Elizabeth they were probably in more general use in England than most writers on the subject are accustomed to allow; for direct communication with the East had been opened up by the fearless and enterprising traders and adventurers of those times. In Hakluyt’s _Voyages_ there are the following instructions to a trader about to journey to Persia— “In Persia you shall finde carpets of course thrummed wooll, the best of the world, and excellently coloured; those cities and townes you most repaire to, and you must use meanes to learne all the order of the dying of those thrummes, which are so died as neither raine, wine, nor yet vinegar can staine; and if you may attaine to that cunning you shall not need to feare dying of clothe. For if the colour holde in yarne and thrumme, it will holde much better in cloth. Learne you there to fixe and make sure the colour to be given by logge wood; so shall we not need to buy wood so deare to the enriching of our enemies. Enquire the price of leckar, and all other things belonging to dying. If before you returne you could procure a single good workeman in the arte of Turkish carpet making you should bringe the arte into this Realme, and also thereby increase worke to your company.” Hakluyt’s praise of the Persian carpets was not undeserved, for their manufacture in his time had reached a period of excellence as regards design and workmanship which it has been from time to time the aim of modern manufacturers to reproduce, as far as the conditions and requirements of the present day permit. Many of the best specimens in the museums and collections of New York, London, Vienna, and Paris are attributed to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. When Hakluyt wrote there was in existence a carpet at the Mosque of Ardebil, in North-West Persia, which is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The date of this carpet is 1540, and experts agree that it belongs to the best period of Persian carpet weaving.