How is it that Italy, that land of the arts, which always takes the first rank in works of intelligence, should here follow in the last? It is because history, as far as relates to tapestry, is, for her, but in its birth. There were, it is true, some vague indications in Vasari; but with that tendency to generalise in all that concerns art, which we have alluded to, the fact that the cartoons of Raffaelle and of Giulio Romano had been copied in tapestry in Flanders was seized upon; therefore all hangings in the Italian style were pronounced to be Flemish, and Italy had no manufactures of her own.

At the present day, however, every one makes researches, and obscurity soon disappears from every question worthy of interest; the Exhibition of the history of Costume had displayed works of so purely Italian a taste, and of such different periods, that a great gap in the history of tapestries began to be suspected, when in 1874 only, a book appeared in Rome, published by an "arazziere," the Cavaliere Pietro Gentili: this book was destined to put an end to all doubts, and it immediately suggested to M. Alfred Darcel, director of the Gobelins, a substantial notice, which may serve as a starting point for future discoveries.

Ferrara

FERRARA appears to be the most ancient and the most important manufactory in Italy : according to the communal registers, it is on the date of the 4th December, 1464, that Jean Mille, and Raynal Grue, two French artists, "celebres et accomplis dans I'art," offered to teach the weaving of tapestry, with figures, landscape, and "verdure" in three years, for a remuneration of nine ducats each pupil. M. Darcel remarks upon the shortness of the time, three years' study being required before an apprentice of the Gobelins can be utilised; he supposes that the two Frenchmen who founded the establishment came from Arras, which is probable, as the period corresponds with the conquests of Louis XI. and the ruin of the manufactory. In the sixteenth century, the Ferrarese establishments became developed, with the aid of Flemish and German workmen associated with those of the country. In 1505, at the time of the marriage of Alfonso of Este with Lucrezia Borgia, the hangings decorating the hall of the chateau were from Ferrara. Afterwards they worked from the cartoons of Giulio Romano and Dosso Dossi. The cathedral of Ferrara still possesses tapestries designed by the latter, and signed FACTUM FERRARIAE M. D. LIU. The same notice, with the date of 1562, was seen on a large tapestry of the Pentecost which appeared at the Exhibition of Milan in 1874; this piece was also marked with an H surmounted by a cross and united to a K.

The Cavaliere Pietro Gentili attributes to Ferrara the mark of the double B, the real origin of which he was unacquainted with, basing his supposition on analogies which we can understand; it was also in reference to Moliere and the cartoons of Dumee and Guyot that M. Paul Mantz had attributed this mark to France.

Dismissal of Hagar and Ishmael by Abraham. Italian Tapestry of the Sixteenth Century. (Collection of M. Bellenot).

Correggio

Correggio , in the duchy of Modena, had its workshops in 1480, and Modena itself in 1488, both founded, it would seem, by Flemish workmen.