[1] It is a mistake to be over-timid in attacking floss-silk. It requires a light but firm hand, and should be pulled fairly tight to get it to lie smoothly—a sort of little secondary jerk after drawing the needle through to the back.
[3] This is the smallest quantity that can be made satisfactorily, twice this quantity is easier to manage. A moderately heaped tablespoonful is about equal to 1 oz., and a small teaspoonful to 2 dr. Ordinary water filtered instead of distilled will do if it is soft.
[4] This method, called a’or nuÉ, the Florentines seem to have got from Flanders, where it had long been in use.
[5] Vasari says: ‘The figures are no less admirably executed with the needle than drawn by Pollaiuolo with the pencil, and thus we are largely indebted to one master for his design, and to the other for his patience.’
[7] To the present day our sovereigns offer upon the altar at their coronation a ‘Pall of Silk’ in accordance with old custom.
[8] The name orarium to denote a stole is still used in the Eastern Church for the deacon’s stole (???????), although it has passed out of use in the Western church altogether, I believe.
[9] There is a beautiful coloured reproduction of it in the ‘Art Worker’s Quarterly,’ January 1906.
[10] ‘In the famous triptych of the Seven Sacraments, by Van der Weyde, now in the Antwerp Museum, the central compartment shows a missal upon the altar at Mass with a sudariolum hanging from it. It would seem by no means impossible that the string to which this napkin was attached was used as a book-marker. The Bishop’s maniple still serves the same purpose in the book of the Gospels at the beginning of Mass.’—Rev. H. Thurston, S.J., ‘Vestments of Low Mass,’ ‘The Month,’ October 1898.
[13] ‘White shining vestment of fine linen common to all clergy.’—Council of Narbonne A.D. 580.
[14] At Sarum in 1222 there were nine girdles of silk and twelve others mentioned in the Inventory. There was one of gold tissue found upon the body of St. Cuthbert at Durham.
[15] Hence the derivation, to which some writers refer as evidence of its being at one time an under garment, points exactly the other way, the pellice being a long lambskin dress worn by the English clergy from very early times. See Matthew Paris, Vit. Abb., p. 53.
[16] Perhaps the red and blue cassocks sometimes to be seen nowadays may justify their existence by the example of these coloured albes frequently mentioned in old documents and depicted in illuminated MSS.
