"Margaret: By my troth, it's but a night-gown in respect of yours; cloth o' gold and cuts, and laced with silver."--_Much Ado about Nothing_, iv. 1. One of the earliest records of Italian lace belongs to Milan, and occurs in an instrument of partition between the sisters Angela and Ippolita Sforza Visconti, dated 1493 (see VENICE). This document is of the highest interest as giving the inventory of an Italian wardrobe of the fifteenth century. In it, amidst a number of curious entries, are veils of good network, with cambric pillow-cases, linen sheets, mosquito curtains and various articles, worked _a reticella_ and _a groppi_, with the needle, bobbins, bones, and other different ways[196] mentioned in the pattern-books of the following century. Among other items we find, "Half of a bundle containing patterns for ladies' work."[197] Though the fabric of these fine points dates back for so many centuries, there is little notice of them elsewhere. {64}Henry VIII. is mentioned as wearing one short pair of hose of purple silk of Venice gold, woven like a caul, edged with a passamaine lace of purple silk and gold, worked at Milan.[198] In a wardrobe account of Lord Hay, gentleman of his Majesty's robes, 1606,[199] is noted down to James I., "One suit with cannons thereunto of silver lace, shadowed with silk Milan lace." Again, among the articles furnished against the "Queen's lying down," 1606, in the bills of the Lady Audrye Walsingham,[200] is an entry of "Lace, Milan fashion, for child's waistcoat." A French edict, dated March, 1613, against superfluity in dress, prohibiting the wearing of gold and silver embroidery, specially forbids the use of all "passement de Milan, ou façon de Milan" under a penalty of one thousand livres.[201] The expression "à point de Milan" occurs in the statutes of the passementiers of Paris.[202] "Les galons, passements et broderies, en or et en argent de Milan," says Savary,[203] were once celebrated. Lalande, who writes some years later, adds, the laces formerly were an object of commerce to the city, now they only fabricate those of an inferior quality.[204] Much was consumed by the Lombard peasants, the better sorts serving for ruffles of moderate price.[205] So opulent are the citizens, says a writer of the same epoch, that the lowest mechanics, blacksmiths and shoemakers, appear in gold stuff coats with ruffles of the finest point.[206] And when, in 1767, the Auvergne lace-makers petition for an exemption from the export duty on their fabrics, they state as a ground that the duty prevents them from competing abroad, especially at Cadiz, with the lace-makers of Piedmont, the Milanais, and Imperial Flanders. Milan must, therefore, have made lace extensively to a late period. PLATE XV. [Illustration: ITALIAN. MILANESE BOBBIN-MADE.--Late seventeenth century. Width, 12 in. Photo by A. Dryden from private collection.] _To face page 64._