[MR] Hey, assisi is NEAR perugia

[Betty Eyer]

You know, I could talk about islamic influence on
european textiles all day, in fact, I probably have,
but I am just guessing that you and I are the only
ones really this interested in the evolution of
towels, so maybe a more in depth discussion should be
off line.  If you are interested in my bibliography, I
can ship it to you. 

Brief comments below

--- Alianora Munro <noramunro at yahoo.com> wrote:
> How early is early?  :-)  
If you think 13c is early, does that mean you are
Elizabethan? 8^)

Well, trade of linens between Egypt and Italy
undoubtably goes back to before Rome, but let's just
start with the occupation of Sicily in roughly the 8th
century.  

Trade with the heathen was not controlled by the Pope
(and thus an Italian monopoly)until the crusades, if
my memory serves me right.  There was a slump in trade
in the Islamic world that began at the fall of Acre
and slowly grew over time.  And finally, the
cultivation of silk in italy was maturing into an
industry during that time and Italian linen was
competing with Egyptian linen for prominence.  So the
idea that a trade item that was formerly produced in
Egypt was now being produced for Europeans in Perugia
in the 13th century makes really good sense to me.
 
>  But I did want to clarify that modern
> art historians (the people who gave us the term
> 'Perugia towels,' misleading though it be) use it
> for
> woven items, not embroidered ones.
I think I acknowledged that in my first sentence.  And
I thought that the humorous tone of the title would
help get that across, but email is an incomplete
communication style.  I am not particularly interested
in Perugia towels per se, but in cross cultural
influences in textiles.  

And on that subject, the motif that I like to call
"facing stylized birdies with vegetation between them"
was certainly used by Persians (I am assuming you mean
Ottomans, if you think 13C is early) but is
distributed all over the Mediteranean as early as the
Romans.  There is a good arguement that it entered the
Levant from Byzantium and many art historians have
wasted their lives doing just that.  If you open the
link in my last email, you will note that the
(embroidered) Assisi work uses the same said birdies. 


=====
Magdalena de Hazebrouck-Purpure, a fess fusilly argent between three torches or. 
"There are two types of music.  The Blues and Zippity Doo Dah." Townes Van Zandt

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com