The elegant Gozitan lace

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Gozo lace is one of the specialties of the island of Gozo and its most distinctive souvenir.

Very few, if any, are aware that if Gozo lace is available in abundance, they are indebted to a priest, Dun Guzepp Diacono.  Were if not for his toil, this handicraft would have died a natural death as many other industries before and after.

Bobbin lace is with needle lace, oe of two main kinds of lace.  It is made with a number of threads, each fastened to an elongated spool or bobbin.  A pattern is drawn on parchment or paper that's then placed on pillow or cushion, and the threads with the bobbins hanging on them, are attached.

The lace is worked with each hand holding a pair of bobbins, which are moved from side to side to form a twist, a braid, or a cloth-like fabric called toil.  Holes are pricked on the pattern to indicate where pins will be placed to keep the threads in position while the lace is being made.  The technique developed later than that of needle lace, and derived from the practice of knotting fringes of material.

The first bobbin lace probably originated in the early 16th century, probably developed in Flanders.

The first weights were of lead, followed by other materials such as wood and bone, hence "bone lace".  Early bobbin lace consisted of rows of deep acute-angled points worked from a narrow band, and the patterns were usually similar to those of the needle laces.  It was widely used for ruffs and collars in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Bobbin lace was introduced in Malta by the Knights of Saint John, then rulers of the islands, and by ecclesiastics who had traveled abroad.  A lady here and there mastered the craft and bobbin lace began to flourish locally.

Early works reveal that the local product is a heavy bobbin lace based especially on 17th-cenury Genoese lace.  The Gozitan historian Gann Piet Frangisk Aguis de Soldanis (1712-70) records that, by the middle of the 18th-century, Gozo lace had already achieved a high degree of perfection and compared favorably with that produced by Dutch women.

In 1800, Malta and Gozo passed under the British.  After an initial period of prosperity, the islands entered a depression that prolonged itself to the second quarter of the 19th-century.  Demand for lace dwindled severely and the industry became almost extinct.

The standard of living plummeted to very low levels and poverty was wide-spread.  Philanthropists began striving hard to better the conditions of their country-men, and they revived the lace industry to help women earn a little income.

Dun Guzepp Diacono (1847-1972), first, began to organize lace lessons at the House of Charity, a house he had opened at Rabat (Victoria) for the education of girls hailing from poor families.  Success was instantaneous, so he began to organize lace and weaving lessons on a professional level in a specialized school, known as Casa Industriale, first as Xaghra and later on at rabat.

At the latter he had two enormous lace bolsters for wide patters such as priests' albas or table covers, and six weaving looms.  With his help a similar Casa Industriale was set up in St Christopher Street Valletta, later transferred to Palazzo de la Salle, where it still functions.

Dun Guzepp is acknowledged to this day as having been the best designer of local lace.  Orders began coming in steadily, so much so that his desk was always overflowing with rolled-up patterns.

Thirdly, he did his best to promote Gozo lace at exhibitions in both Malta and London.   Dun Guzepp also organized the sale of lace to secure a profit for those who took up the craft.  A side room at the Casa Industriale was converted into a permanent exhibition for the sale of lace and weavings.  He was adamant that the money from sales should not got to him as director, but to those who had worked the objects.

The inventiveness was threefold:  Gozo lace retained the Genoese leafwork but introduced light twirls or mosche instead of its solid type, a usage that still prevails; it included the Maltese eight-pointed cross in the designs; and it madeuse of courser thread than that in Genoa and also employed cream or black silk.  These made the local lace clearly distinguishable from the Genoeses.

The resulting Gozo pillow lace was thus a striking merger of the very old reticella needle lace and the still older filet lace.  It was originally worked in very fine black white silk or ecru, unbleached lines.  Sometimes silver and gold thread were intertwined with the rest to produce more valuable pieces that naturally required greater patience and skill.

In a survey that Dun Guzepp himself carried out, he found that some 6,800 women and young girls were engaged in lace-making.  This meant that each of them was gaining from 9 pence to 1 shilling (from 3c7 to 5c) every day, excluding Sundays and holy days: a good income by local early-20th-century standards.

Lately there has been a renewed interest in Gozo lace.  During the current academic year, the University of Malta's Gozo centre is running a part-time course leading to a certificate in lace-making.  the course, coordinated by Consiglia Azzopardi, the person in charge of lace-making at the Gozo Arts School, attracted both locals and foreign residents living on the island.



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