Hi Devon and all Below is some research I conducted a few years ago when I acquired a piece of 16th century Buratto. It is basically a list of references and definitions. I think it is best to use the two names, Buratto really refers to the weave and not the work and so at least to call it Buratto it must use the leno weave base. Hope this is useful to your student. Annette Meldrum, South Coast of NSW, Australia.
The cloth has a loom woven background mesh that is technically a gauze and a form of darning over a leno weave. Paired warp threads are twisted before the weft thread goes across. Alternating twists to left and right, make the spacing of the weft threads settle at nice secure squares. There are no knots in the mesh. It is a sister to Filet only in the square mesh background and the way the figures are filled in. The construction of the mesh is very important to the name. The squares are filled in by needle and thread to make the contrast between open mesh and solid figures. Buratto References Buratto refers to an early type of weave with woven intersections forming an open mesh. Sometimes called sieve weave. It was usually embroidered with a curved needle -using locally spun silk thread often coloured. Woven in Southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia- usually of hand spun linen thread. Many pattern books were published to provide patterns for this work (earliest 1527). The mesh is woven on a loom, the threads being twisted at the junctions resulting in a square mesh. Over-darning with silk provided the design. Similar to lacis (knotted mesh) and copied lacis designs..Buratto is distinguished by the cloudy ground. It is rarely found due to its age, particularly if embroidered with coloured silks which deteriorated. After 17th century it was forgotten until revived by the arts and crafts movement in the 19th century. Gwynne J. The Illustrated Dictionary of Lace 1997. P.50-51 Filet or lacis as it was first named (from the 12th century) is probably one of the earliest forms of lace and was used from the medieval times for decoration of household textiles and dress accessories. In lace classification terms, it is an embroidered lace because it is worked over a previously constructed base fabric. The base fabric of filet was originally a hand knotted square mesh. It had a 'companion' fabric which was known as Burato or Buratto (from the Latin bura meaning coarse cloth). The Burato used for lacemaking is a hand woven square-meshed fabric (leno weave) in which pairs of warp threads are twisted, and the twist fixed by a single weft thread. The earliest patterns for these laces, published in the 1500's were identical and designate their use for both forms of lace embroidery ( and could be used for other kinds of counted thread embroidery like monochrome cross stitch). Contemporary filet is in fact Burato because it uses a machine -woven leno weave fabric as its base. (Hand knotted filet laces are still made in China for the western market. Lacis is the umbrella term - filet lacis and Burato lacis. This was Mrs. Hungerford Pollen's solution, no doubt influenced by Lefebvre, and earlier writer, who says that according to a dictionary of 1684 lacis is a 'tissue of net', the threads of which are knotted or interlaced the one with the other. Contemporary lace historians prefer to keep the two techniques separate. Rosemary Shepherd, Powerhouse Museum, Sept.2003 Buratto: leno fabric as base for embroidery. Buratto embroidery (Buratto Ricamato) combination of stitches on leno weave. Category; counted thread embroidery - free embroidery. P.38 p.80 Fragment end of XVI century, beginning of XVII century. Origin Italy. Buratto (embroidered) , geometric embroidery. Darning stitch in one direction. Merletti e Ricami Italiani: Italian Laces and Embroideries: Forum 2005. The Origins. Ch10 Buratto in Earnshaw, Needle-made laces In Buratto the background appeared similar to Filet, but it was woven so that its production was speedier. It lacked the knotting so characteristic of filet. Earnshaw, Pat, The identification of lace, 1980 p.33-35 Arizona Weaving has a copy of Il Burato by Paganino It seems that Elisa Ricci did a facsimile in 1909. A picture of a loom looks a lot larger than what we would expect. References: Abegg, Margaret, Appropos Patterns for Embroidery, Lace and Woven Textiles, Abegg-Stifflung Bern, Switzerland, 1978 Earnshaw, Pat, Needle-made Laces, Collins, Sydney Australia, 1988 Earnshaw, Pat, The identification of lace, 1980 p.33-35 Lefebvre, Earnest . Embroidery and Lace, translated and enlarged by Alan S Cole, 1888 Levey, Santina, Lace, A History. W S Maney and the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1983 Notore, Cristina. Merletti e Ricami Italiani: Italian Laces and Embroideries: Forum 2005, Italia Invita. 2005 Bologna, Italy. Pollen, Mrs. Maria Hungerford, Seven Centuries of Lace, Macmillan, New York, 1908 Shepherd, Rosemary, Lace Classification System, Powerhouse Museum web site 2003 Simeon, Margaret, A History of Lace, Stainer & Bell, London 1979 Definitions: Burat(t)o (needle) Lace produced by embroidering an openweave fabric that has a Leno Weave ( also called Loome lace).. Alexandra Stillwell, Cassell Illustrated Dictionary of Lacemaking, 1996. Loome lace: (needle) A term used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries , possibly referring to Burato. Alexandra Stillwell, Cassell Illustrated Dictionary of Lacemaking, 1996. Buratto Netting with an embroidered or darned-in pattern, similar to lacis, but the Buratto netting is made by twisting threads instead of knotting them. Burato - the word means a stiff cloth or canvas on which the pattern is embroidered, reducing it to a kind of rude lace. P.53 Mrs. Bury Palliser. History of Lace.1875. Buratto. Lacis patterns were also worded on a ground fabric which was woven with an open gauze weave resembling the regular mesh of the hand knotted net. This fabric was called burato from the Latin word bura meaning coarse cloth; it was woven in Italy and seems to have been used there from an early period. Records date back to 1527. P.18 Santina M. Levey. Lace A History.1983 Fulvia Lewis Lace: Buratto Needle Lace - Plate II Table cloth border cm 18 x 80 cm Italy, Sicilian 17th century, close shows detail of weave. -----Original Message----- From: owner-l...@arachne.com [mailto:owner-l...@arachne.com] On Behalf Of dmt11h...@aol.com Sent: Thursday, 26 September 2013 1:11 AM To: k.bov...@yahoo.com; l...@arachne.com Subject: Re: [lace] Buratto vs. Filet Lace Thanks to all who have responded (and who have yet to?) - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
