"This collar was sculptured by my lady {67} In bas reliefs such as Arachne And she who conquered her could ne'er excel. Look on that lovely foliage, like an Acanthus, Which o'er a wall its graceful branches trails. Look on those lovely flowers of purest white, Which, near the pods that open, hang in harmony. That little cord which binds each one about, How it projects! proving that she who wrought it Is very mistress of this art. How well distributed are all these points! See the equality of all those little buds Which rise like many fair proportioned hills, One like the other.... This hand-made lace, this open-work, Is all produced by her, this herring-bone, Which in the midst holds down a little cord, Was also made by her; all wrought by her." Henry VIII. granted to two Florentines the privilege of importing for three years' time all "manner of fringys and passements wrought with gold and silver or otherwise,"[208] an account of which will be found in the notice of that monarch's reign. Beyond this, and the statute already mentioned, passed at the "Sute of the Browderers" on account of the "deceyptful waight of the gold of Luk, Florence, Jeane, and Venice,"[209] there is no allusion to the lace of Florence in our English records. In France, as early as 1545, the sister of Francis I. purchases "soixante aulnes fine dantelle de Florence"[210] for her own use, and some years afterwards, 1582, the Queen of Navarre pays 17 écus 30 sols for 10 aulnes et demye of the same passement "faict à l'esguille à haulte dantelle pour mettre à des fraizes."[211] On the marriage of Elizabeth de France with Philip II. in 1559, purchases were made of "passements et de bisette, en fil blanc de Florence." Seeing the early date of these French accounts, it may be inferred that Catherine de Médicis first introduced, on her arrival as a bride, the Italian points of her own native city.[212] In Florence, in the fifteenth century, Savonarola, in his sermons (1484-1491), reproached the nuns with "devoting their time to the vain fabrication of gold laces with which to adorn the houses and persons of the rich." Ray mentions that people of quality sent their daughters {68}at eight years old to the Florentine nunneries to be instructed in all manner of women's work. Lace was also fabricated at Sienna, but it appears to have been the _lavoro di maglia_ or lacis, called by the Tuscans _modano ricamato_--embroidered network. Early in the last century two Genoese nuns, of the Convent Sta. Maria degli Angeli in Sienna, executed pillow laces and gold and silver embroidery of such surpassing beauty, that they are still carefully preserved and publicly exhibited on fête-days. One Francesca Bulgarini also instructed the schools in the making of lace of every kind, especially the Venetian reticella.[213] THE ABRUZZI.