Cloth of gold is something that is mentioned as one possible substitute for liturgical white and it is frequently a point of conversation amongst vestment aficionados. Popularly speaking, however, the idea of "gold" vestments is frequently reduced to simply mean yellow, but historically speaking cloth of gold was exactly what it sounds like: cloth that was woven with spun, metallic gold thread. Suffice it to say, it was (and is) and extremely precious textile, generally reserved to the highest possible uses, and what higher use could there be than the most solemn festal liturgical occasions.
Here, for your consideration, are just a couple of examples of cloth of gold, coming from the 18th and 19th centuries.
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| An 18th century chasuble in cloth of gold |
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| 19th century cloth of gold cope |
To give a readers a better sense of this precious textile, frequently found within the context of the sacred liturgy, we'd like to turn your attention to the prestigious Venetian textile manufacturer, Luigi Bevilacqua, who recently produced an article on this very subject. We offer parts of it here for your consideration.
CHARACTERISTICS OF CLOTH OF GOLD AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Cloth of gold is a luxury fabric for furnishings and clothing, made by interlacing silk with gold or silver threads. Of very ancient origins (some sources date it back to 11th century Greece), gold silk weaving arrived in Venice in the 14th century thanks to trade with the Orient, and reached a very high level, especially in the 17th century, so much so that the merchants of the Serenissima exported it to Germany and the Orient, where the demand for luxury fabrics was high. At the end of the 14th century, other Italian states were also producing this type of fine cloth: the Duchy of Milan and the Republics of Genoa, Florence and Lucca. Various documents testify to the Venetian tradition associated with these precious fabrics. A law of 1366, prohibiting the import of gold cloth, testifies that the production of velvet and gold cloth was constantly increasing [...]
In 1711... the scuola for the art of working with precious metals was built [in Venice]... The art of the reduction of gold or silver into threads for the weaving of precious fabrics and embroidery was... at the heart of the [school].
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| “Scoletta dell’arte dei battioro e tiraoro” – Venice |
THE PRODUCTION OF GOLD CLOTH It is said that just before the 11th century, during the reign of Doge Vitale Faliero (1084-1096), the Western Emperor Henry IV visited Venice to venerate the body of St. Mark. At his service was Antinope, a skilled Greek weaver specialized in the art of silk, who made a robe of silk and gold thread for a lady with whom the emperor had fallen in love. On this occasion, a document of the time mentions the key figures in the art of working with precious metals for weaving: the battiloro (gold-beaters), tiraoro (gold thread-makers), and filaoro (gold thread-winders). The battiloro are the artisans who beat gold with hammers, reducing it to very thin sheets, down to a thickness of ten-thousandths of a millimeter, which are then cut. The tiraoro, are in charge of pulling the precious metals to reduce them to long, very thin threads by forcing them through dies with circular holes of decreasing size. Finally, the filaoro are in charge of winding the gold and silver foils and threads around a textile fiber, particularly silk, in a more or less narrow helix. The ancients used pure gold, but from the 13th to the 16th century, thin sheets of silver or gilded silver were used. It was then up to the weavers to create the fabrics by hand, using the fine metal yarns to make brocades, damasks and velvets. One of the most characteristic techniques was the allucciolatura, a true textile masterpiece. Such precious fabrics are still being produced today.
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