The tomb of the same pope, and of others of about the same date, afford still more cogent evidence. In the Crypt of St. Peter's, Rome, Pope Boniface VIII. is represented in full pontifical vestments lying on a bier which is draped with a richly ornamental pall; this is raised to show a linen cloth with a border of reticello work in what is termed by a learned writer "the well-known geometrical design of the thirteenth century." The Pope wears an alb with an ornamental border which is repeated on the sleeves. The fact is, of course, acknowledged that linen cloth was used for bed-linen, towels, and other articles. For albs, linen, and linen only, was ordered by the rubric; therefore, if one sees an alb represented, whether by painting or sculpture, the intention to represent linen is implied. And, if ornamented, the intention to represent linen lace is clear in many instances, although the painter or sculptor cannot, of course, give us a facsimile as satisfying as the photographs we have here. I will here refer to the well-known pictures by Giotto and his school. One in the Louvre, of the birth of St. John the Baptist, has most unmistakable lacework on the linen of the bed, and on the long towel gracefully depicted as hanging from the shoulder of one of the attendants. A fresco, also by Giotto, in the Basilica of Assisi, represents the figure of the Divine Infant in a shirt with reticello ornament. Duccio di Buoninsegna (1260-1340) and Lorenzetti (1276-1348) may be mentioned among many others, as in their paintings linen cloths are rendered with unmistakable needle-point ornament. It is quite clear that these laces were in general use before the fourteenth century, although it is not surprising that few specimens remain to us. The pattern of the lacis, or sfilatura, in Plate No. 7, is geometrical, with an Eastern tendency, as in Pope Boniface's alb. It is singularly like the dresses of saints in some of the Ravenna mosaics, and the more ancient stitches can be seen in the specimen given, but there is no buttonhole stitch. In describing the design of this piece of old lacis, I am again tempted to quote M. Gayet's description of lace found in the Coptic tomb. He says: "It is lace as it is made to-day. All the threads of the réseau are drawn together to one point, and the meshes start from the centre like rays crossing and recrossing and thus forming various patterns." The pieces of network from these Coptic tombs, preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum fully justify this description, and no doubt the Eastern tradition can be traced in Plate 7. As we have seen, the ornament of the earliest laces was simple, or quasi-simple, in design; but even then the craving to represent life often appears. The band down the front of the Assisi alb, for example, has a row of stags thoroughly subservient to the distinctly polygonal idea.