Pezzeglie
Lace-making in Molise and Nonna's doilies
Note: from what I’ve gathered, doilies are pezzeglie, but not all pezzeglie are doilies. Pezzeglie can also refer to merletti or pizzi (lace). In this newsletter, I use the word pezzeglie as a general term for all these works.
How many shiny, wooden surfaces have I seen draped carefully in white doilies? Dining tables with elaborate runners. Coffee and end tables — always freshly Pledged and dusted — repurposed into family altars, showcasing the precious nipoti’s toothless smiles from decades ago, in gold and silver picture frames, probably bonbonniere from weddings and those elaborate engagement parties that aren’t really a thing anymore. People joke about plastic covered furniture, but I would argue that doilies take up more surface area in any given nonna’s home (it’s sometimes even on the plastic covered furniture).
Doilies are crocheted using wool, cotton, and acrylic yarns. Like most textiles and fibres, these pezzeglie are traditionally women’s work. Crafts that, until recently, never received recognition as *Art*. Another victim of the patriarchy, relegated to the private sphere. Quietly accumulating in the home, passed on from mother to daughter, until it wasn’t anymore. I don’t know how to crochet and neither does my mom. Though I did have a brief knitting phase as a child.
Like most ancestral, peasant practices from the rural, Italian south — cucina povera, herbal and plant knowledge — its categorization as folkloric and female meant that its cultural and social value went overlooked. Though, unlike cucina povera, which has been “elevated”1 to trendy, fine dining due to marketing by none other than Mario Batali, disgraced ex-restaurateur and chef, himself, textile and fibre art has taken a more low-key (and, thankfully, less creep-ridden) path towards resurgence in the 21st century. Today, the intricate art of pezzeglie is taught by master merlettaie (lace-makers).2 Craft practices, like textile and fibre work, have also been cornerstones to feminist art movements, through which they have been “declared […] a legitimate art form equal to those promoted in the Eurocentric canon.”3
Look, I haven’t taken an art history class since 2014, so I’m not up to date on the literature, but, again, I have to ask: why do we need this legitimization? Whose standards are being met?4
Ironically, or maybe not given these last two paragraphs, I connected with fibre art practices in university. There, I learned to weave, embroider, dye, screen-print; I learned devoré, basketry (newsletter on this coming in the future), and felting. Here, too, the practices had to be elevated: present a concept, a story. Otherwise, apparently, what’s the point?
“Il nodo che diventa poesia”
My earliest sewing memories are in Molise, the first time I visited with my nonni and stayed in my nonna’s old home. Her childhood friend still lives in the house next door, where I would go visit to play. Playing meant sewing on buttons and putting together scraps of fabric, dreaming up designs for my Barbies. I’ve always loved clothes and fasion, so these fabric scraps were really like toys to me, allowing space for creativity and imagination. This is one of the few, most vivd memories I have of that trip. Needle and thread, clumsily making the first stitches to the fabric of that place, Molise.
Those scraps now only exist in my memories. The buttons loose, the Barbie shift dresses fragile from the baste-like stitching. I imagine them full of knots because I would cut my thread so long. I would get frustrated having to re-thread the needle too many times; still do now. They served no conceptual purpose, but they told stories: il nodo che diventa poesia. The knot becomes poetry.5
Not that I’m comparing my childhood knots to the meticulous work required to make merletto. Though I can imagine my work at the tombolo would look quite similar considering how complicated it seems.
Isernia, the city (it’s also the name of one of the two provinces in Molise), is known for its merletto. Done on the tombolo, a cylindrical cushion on which you strategically place little pins to create the desired lace pattern, this artform dates back to the 14th century. It is believe that're tummarieglie, as they’re called in the dialect, were introduced to the city by nuns and were favourites of Queen Giovanna III d'Aragona, wife of Federico I, king of Naples.6 According to legend, she was so taken by the perfect craftsmanship of the tombolo isernino that she wanted to learn how to make lace from the local women.7
‘Re tummarieglie are made from cotton, linen, silk, or wool thread. In Isernia, this thread has a particular ivory colour, typical only of that region.
Starting from the first pin, the merlettaie build knot upon knot, “mani semplici, di semplici donne del popolo, intrecciando con abilità e disinvoltura i tummarieglie ed intessendo delicate trame sui caratteristici pallume.”8 Delicate trame, delicate storylines. Do these need to be “elevated” to be meaningful? To matter?
Round and round the tombolo, the merlettaie tell their stories. Each pin in its place, each knot with a particular purpose. I think of other unelevated spaces of storytelling: doing laundry by the stream;9 at the stove, while the coffee comes to a boil in the caffettiera; at the sink, washing and drying the Sunday dishes. I’m thankful that I’ve broken free from the confines many of those spaces would have had on me, in another time, in another place. But I also long for them to exist beyond the male gaze, beyond the binary of “gossip” and “storytelling,” “high” and “low,” “crafts” and “Arts.” And I also want them to just be. Not need justification, or elevation, or validation. I want to stand at my nonna’s sink, beside the heavy wooden table draped in its elegant doily, and feel like that’s my rebellion, not my expectation.
Cass
See below for monthly tarot pull, footnotes, and resource list.
Monthly Tarot Read
Each issue will include a tarot pull reflecting on the research and folklore discussed in the newsletter.
“A card of innonce, representing a return to values untainted by ego.”10 Wading into the water, cups, overflowing with light, welcome the flower-headed goddess. The six of cups is traditionally a card of innocence, a call to connect with your inner child or to embrace what we can learn from children and the ways they see the world around them. In this case, I see these glowing cups as calling us to not confuse self-worth and respect with self-importance and conceit. As we weave our threads, connections to places and people and stories, pay attention to what makes them truly meaningful. Be intentional about it. Reject easy binaries and categorizations and embrace the chaos. Apparently, in physics, chaos refers to “behavior so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions.” Each small knot or stitch, a purposeful gesture into the void, a consequential change. A story.
I think we can agree this term is problematic, which is why I purposefully use it (in quotations) here. “Elevated” to what? By whose standards?
Apparently, you can even take courses at the Istituto Artistico in Isernia, according to Wikipedia. TBC.
Melissa Potter, “Material Engagements: Craft and Feminist Futures,” Bomb Magazine, June 28, 2019: https://bombmagazine.org/articles/material-engagements-craft-and-feminist-futures/.
The White Pube never disappoints with their takes on the art world. I highly recommend. Definitely worth browsing through rather than reading me ramble about things I’ve been disconnected from for a while.
A phrase that I love, which I found here: “Merletto, ovvero il nodo che diventa poesia,” Casa Stile, July 11, 2013, https://www.casastileweb.it/textile/decor/merletto-ovvero-il-nodo-che-diventa-poesia/.
The Regno di Napoli lasted from the 14th to 19th centuries, under a variety of rulers, and encompassing a variety of territories in the south of Italy (sometimes including Sicily, other times not). It’s a long and complicated history, but here’s an idea of what the territory looked like most of the time: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regno_di_Napoli#/media/File:Grandi_Casate_Italiane_nel_1499.png.
Carlo Santilli, Isernia e il suo dialetto, E. Di. Ci.: Isernia, 1988: 381.
Ibid. Translation: “Simple hands, of simple women, deftly and casually entwining bobbins and weaving delicate patterns/plots/storylines on the characteristic tombolo.”
There’s an incredible perfomance art piece called “Come Wash With Us: Seeking Home in Story,” by the Tasht Collective (Shahrzad Arshadi, Hourig Attarian, Khadija Baker, Kumru Bilici), which speaks to this space: “the one hour performance centers around the act of doing laundry with collective members weaving personal and family stories into the actions.” https://www.concordia.ca/cuevents/artsci/2018/10/120/performance--come-wash-with-us.html. Featured in Beyond Women's Words, edited by Katrina Srigley, Stacey Zembrzycki, Franca Iacovetta (Routledge: London, 2018).
Linzi Silverman, The Intuitive Night Goddess Tarot Companion Guide.
Resources
Azzopardi, Consiglia. “Studying the History of Lace Making.” https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/bitstream/123456789/15381/1/lace%20making.pdf.
Chicchiari, Tonino. “Il merletto di Isernia.” http://www.fioretombolo.net/isernia.htm.
“Il merletto a tombolo: l'antico e continuo crepitìo dei fuselli nei vicoli di Isernia.” Consiglio Regionale dei molisani nel mondo. October 24, 2006. https://web.archive.org/web/20120518152154/http://www.molisando.it/news_detail.php?pag_CONT__dina_3=1&news_ID=246.
Isernia turismo, http://www.iserniaturismo.it/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=29.
“Merletto, ovvero il nodo che diventa poesia,” Casa Stile, July 11, 2013, https://www.casastileweb.it/textile/decor/merletto-ovvero-il-nodo-che-diventa-poesia/.
Museo del tombolo, Isernia. https://www.paesionline.it/italia/musei-e-pinacoteche-isernia/museo-del-tombolo.
“Pizzi e merletti lavorati al tombolo.” Blog Molise Tour. https://www.molisetour.it/blog/?articolo=249&t=Pizzi%20e%20Merletti%20lavorati%20al%20tombolo.
“Pizzi e merletti: storia, fashion e tipologie esistenti!” Tentazione Fashion. https://www.tentazionefashion.it/pizzi-e-merletti/.
Potter, Melissa. “Material Engagements: Craft and Feminist Futures.” Bomb Magazine, June 28, 2019.
Powys, Marian. Lace and Lace Making. Boston: C.T. Branford, 1953.
Santilli, Carlo. Isernia e il suo dialetto. E. Di. Ci.: Isernia, 1988.
Srigley, Katrina, Stacey Zembrzycki, and Franca Iacovetta, ed. Beyond Women's Words. Routledge: London, 2018.
“The Craft of Lacemaking.” The Lace Guild. https://www.laceguild.org/a-brief-history-of-lace.
I enjoyed reading this thank you. It reminded me of the abruzzese community in Melbourne, renown for their macramè skills. I worked at a popular Italian restaurant there, one of the owner was a second generation abruzzese and had used macramè decoration as a highlight and a nod to his roots. I met many second and third generations during that time. It felt like traveling back to an Italy that's not there anymore. This experience forced me to stop and think about my own family. My grandparents migrated to Germany from Sardinia in the fifties and lived there ever since. I bet they have many stories to tell.
Thank you for sharing your stories, it's an important thing to do.
Ciao from Venice!