The first images of the damages caused by the earthquake at the Museo Nazionale d'Abruzzo in L'Aquila finally arrived. They sadly proved that many pieces were not just damaged but entirely destroyed.
Apart from highly important historical works of art, L’Aquila preserved in some of his museums also examples of a precious and almost lost art, that of “tombolo” lace, known in English as pillow or bobbin lace (a theme already explored in a previous post).
This art was maybe imported in L'Aquila by Venetian merchants around the 1400s, though, according to other historians it spread in the 1800s when the traditional wedding dress of Scanno women was enriched by tombolo lace inserts around the neckline.
Some volumes record a visit of Queen Isabel, wife of the King of Naples, to San Bernardino's church, during which she saw women working on precious laces in the streets of the city centre.
The art of tombolo lace was taught and developed by the local nuns: young women would learn it from them and make lace pieces that were then sold to the Kingdom of Naples where they were used as decorations for church altars or tombstones. Women would dedicate most of their time to these pieces and would therefore not have enough time to work on their trousseau. This is one of the main reasons why there aren’t too many pieces of ancient tombolo lace around, the other reason being the fact that tombolo is quite fragile and therefore difficult to be preserved.
When Margaret of Austria was appointed governess of L’Aquila, new lace techniques were imported from the Flanders and, combining with the local techniques, they created a new style.
The thread used for the traditional L'Aquila lace is made of silk or linen and it’s very thin. The technique is mainly characterised by two different kinds of stitches, the “new” or "commercial" stitch and the “old” stitch. The former allows to create symmetrical and geometrical patterns, while the latter is used to make different elements such as flowers, butterflies, letters and other assorted motifs. L'Aquila's tombolo belongs to the “Torchon” type (for this reason it recalls Bruges’s lace), a technique that employs a lot of bobbins. It’s almost impossible to find drawings of L’Aquila tombolo laces as they are usually developed by the lacemakers and rarely printed in magazines or in book format, this is why this art is unique.
One of the best contemporary L’Aquila-based tombolo artists is Daulia Pannunzio who also teaches tombolo skills. She owns a little place in Santo Stefano di Sessanio (NB the tower of the village was completely destroyed by the earthquake, together with the part of the village that hadn't been renovated yet) where she keeps her laceworks and exhibits them to the public.
I hope that Daulia and her works are safe and that one day, when L’Aquila will be rebuilt, there will be a little museum dedicated exclusively to this art, that, hopefully, won't be entirely erased by this tragedy.
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