MUSEO DEL MERLETTO A TOMBOLO

The Renaissance village of Pescocostanzo, located in the Abruzzo Apennine, is rich in craft traditions that spans from gold filigree to stone carving, from wrought iron handicraft to the so called Tombolo, a sort of lace worked with a special pillow and proper bobbins. Such activities were most likely introduced in Pescocostanzo around the second half of the fourteenth century when the town, destroyed by a ruinous earthquake in 1456, was rebuilt employing skilled workmen from Lombardy, who moved with their family and brought their heritage of tradition and crafts. Since that time the art of pillow lace has been handed down from mother to daughter for centuries up to the present day. In order to save and preserve such an ancient and precious artistry at the end of the Nineties the municipality created the Scuola per il Tombolo (School of Pillow Lacemaking) and the Craft Museum and Market, set today in the seventeenth-century Fanzago Palace. The school has established itself as an active part in training professional lacemakers through a didactic programme which takes into consideration all phases of lacemaking: from the pattern to the printing, from the choice of the textile to the real technical execution, essentially based on a pricking paper or card called "sceda". Along with teaching, the school promotes the making and marketing of the lace. The Craft Museum and Market, in fact, beside a section centered on the making process and on the tools needed for the "tombolo", puts on display ancient laces from private collection and from ecclesiastical arrays, some of them dating back to the eighteenth century; furthermore it exhibits modern collections such as the one named "Colazione del Principe" (Prince's breakfast), made up of all the most significant pieces of the Abruzzo crafts needed for setting a table: the tablecloth embroidered with pillow lace from Pescocostanzo, the ceramic cups from Castelli, the holders of cups in silver filigree.