This French word means “net”. Filet is not a real lace, but an embroidery worked in cloth or mending stitch on a net with knotted meshes, made using a spool and a loom. In Italy it is called mòdano, from the needle used in the making of the ground net. The square-mesh structure of the ground net is identical to that of fishing nets, although in a reduced scale. This similarity with fishing nets supports the theory that mòdano has very ancient origins.

The idea that it was possible to embroider this net however, did not dawn until the beginning of the sixteenth century, a period when the technique became very popular also thanks to the remarkable diffusion of the modellari, or pattern books. It was especially in interior decoration that filet was widely used throughout the sixteenth and at the beginning of the following century, when it was especially used to make coverlets and insertions.

Caterina de' Medici herself enjoyed filet making and possessed several filet pieces, especially many bed furnishings and “almost one thousand square filet pieces decorated with rosettes and bouquets”.

Further reading:

Cfr. A. Kraatz, Merletti, Milano, 1988.