VENICE POINT.] Fynes Moryson[188] is the earliest known traveller who alludes to the products of Venice. "Venetian ladies in general," he says, "wear a standing collar and ruffs close up to the chin; the unmarried tie their hair with gold and silver lace." Evidently the collars styled "bavari," for which Vecellio[189] gives patterns "all' usanza Veneziana," were {56}not yet in general vogue.[190] The Medici collars were supported by fine metal bars called "verghetti," which were so much in demand that the inhabitants of a whole quarter of Venice were engaged in their production, and the name which it still bears was given to it in consequence. [Illustration: Fig. 28. GROS POINT DE VENISE.--(First half of 17th century.)] [Illustration: Fig. 29. POINT DE VENISE.--End of 17th century.] [Illustration: Fig. 30. POINT PLAT DE VENISE.--Middle of 17th century. _To face page 56._] {57}Fifty years later, Evelyn speaks of the veils of glittering taffetas, worn by the Venetian ladies, to the corners of which hang broad but curious tassels of point laces. According to Zedler, an author who wrote about lace in 1742, the price of Venice point in high relief varied from one to nine ducats per Italian ell. The Venetians, unlike the Spaniards, thought much of their fine linen and the decorations pertaining to it. "La camicia preme assai più del giubbone," ran the proverb--"La chemise avant le pourpoint." Young nobles were not allowed to wear lace on their garments until they put on the robe, which they usually did at the age of five-and-twenty, on being admitted to the council.[191] Towards 1770, the Venice ladies themselves commenced to forsake the fabrics of their native islands; for on the marriage of the Doge's son, in that year, we read that, although the altar was decorated with the richest Venice point, the bride and her ladies wore their sleeves covered up to the shoulders with falls of the finest Brussels lace, and a tucker of the same material.[192] During the carnival, however, the people, both male and female, wore a camail, or hood of black lace, covering the chin up to the mouth, called a "bauta."[193] It was one of these old black lace hoods that Walpole describes Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as wearing at Florence, 1762, in place of a cap.