8586.
Fragment of Silk Tissue; ground, purple; pattern, small squares, green and black, enclosing a black disk voided in the middle. Byzantine (?), 12th century. 7 inches by 2 inches.
This stuff, which was thin in its new state, is now very tattered
and its colours dimmed.
8587.
Fragment of Silk Tissue; ground, purple; pattern, a rosette within a lozenge, with a floral border. Italian, 14th century. 4 inches by 2 inches.
8588.
Stole of Gold Tissue, figured with small beasts, birds, and floriated ornaments, bordered on one side by a blue stripe edged with white and charged with ornamentation in gold, on the other, by a green one of a like character, as well as by two Latin inscriptions. The ends, four inches long, are of crimson silk, ornamented with seed-pearls, small red, blue, gold, yellow, and green beads, pieces of gilt-silver, and have a fringe three inches long, red and green. Sicilian, 13th century. 6 feet by 3-1/4 inches.
As a piece of textile showing how the weavers of the middle ages
could, when they needed, gear the loom for an intricacy of pattern in
animals as well as inscriptions, this rich cloth of gold is a valuable
specimen. Among the ornaments on the middle band we find doves,
harts, the letter M floriated, winged lions, crosses floriated, crosses
sprouting out on two sides with fleurs-de-lis, four-legged monsters,
some like winged lions, some biting their tails, doves in pairs upholding
a cross, &c; and above and below these, divided from them
by gracefully ornamented bars, one blue the other green, may be
