Few people at the present day have a just idea of the labour, the money, and the length of time often bestowed of old upon embroideries, which had been sketched as well as wrought by the hands of men, each in his own craft the ablest and most cunning of his time. In behalf of England plenty of evidence has been produced already: as a proof of the same labour elsewhere a remarkable passage may be quoted, given, in his life of Antonio Pollaiuolo, by Vasari: “For San Giovanni in Florence there were made certain very rich vestments after the design of this master, all of gold-wove velvet with pile upon pile (di broccato riccio sopra riccio), each woven of one entire piece and without seam, embroidered with the most subtile mastery of that art by Paolo da Verona, a man most eminent of his calling, and of incomparable ingenuity. This work took twenty-six years for its completion, being wholly in close stitch (questi ricami fatti con punto serrato); but the excellent method of which is now all but lost, the custom being in these days to make the stitches much wider (il punteggiare piu largo), whereby the work is rendered less durable and much less pleasing to the eye.” These vestments may yet be seen framed and glazed in presses around the sacristy of San Giovanni. Antonio died in 1498. The magnificent cope before referred to, now at Stonyhurst, is of one seamless piece of gorgeous gold tissue figured with bold wide-spreading foliage in crimson velvet, pile upon pile, and dotted with small gold spots; probably it came from the same loom that threw off these famous San Giovanni vestments. [Illustration: Embroidered Saddle-cloth of the sixteenth century.] CHAPTER IX. The old English “opus consutum” or cut-work, called in French “appliqué,” is a term of rather wide meaning, as it takes in several sorts of decorative accompaniments to needlework. When anything--flower, fruit, or figure--is wrought by itself upon a separate piece of silk or canvas and afterwards sewed on to the vestment for church use, or article for domestic purpose, it comes to be known as cut-work. This kind of work was employed for dresses and vestments; but we find it most commonly on bed-curtains, hangings for rooms and halls, and other items in household furniture.