The art of Gozo lace

Abstract

The art of making lace can be traced to the renaissance des arts in the fifteenth century. The industry initially flourished in a few Italian and Flemish cities but before long it made its way into other European urban centres. Lace-making is an art which requires training and skill. Since the time when the industry was merely a primitive art, skilled lace-workers were excused all other menial tasks. While the cleverer women made lace, their less skillful sisters and friends washed the clothes, milked the cows and tilled the fields. Slowly but surely the use of lace became fashionable amongst the higher classes of the population. It was soon introduced in ceremonial regalia at the royal courts as well as in the church's liturgical vestments. It must have been through such vestments imported from nearby Sicily that lace made its appearance in Malta late during the Aragonese rule around the tum of the 16th Century. [excerpt]