Libbretto nouellamete composto per maestro Domenico da Sera...lauorare di ogni sorte di punti, page 10 (verso) 1532

This is page 10 from a book by Domenico da Sera, printed in Venice, Italy. We don’t know exactly when, but likely in the mid-16th century. It is a woodcut that depicts patterns for needlework. These designs weren’t presented as high art, they were useful templates for domestic craft. But they were also commodities, produced and sold in a booming urban economy. Books like this reveal a growing market in luxury goods and an increasingly literate and consumer-oriented public. The regular, geometric patterns are typical of the era, a mix of older traditions with the influence of classical forms which were very fashionable at the time. These books would have been of interest to women of the upper and middle classes, but also to professional embroiderers and lace makers. Catalogues and inventories, guild records, and, of course, surviving examples of embroidery, can all help us understand the world in which this image was made and used.