Bobbin Lace of Isernia

In the historic centre of Isernia, capital of Molise and a town of Samnite origin later settled as a Roman colony, some women still sit outdoors with the tombolo (bobbin lace cushion) resting on their knees. The cylindrical cushion, padded and fixed onto its stand, holds dozens of wooden bobbins that the fingers move with precise rhythm, crossing and winding the thread until the lace takes shape. This is not a display staged for tourists: it is a practice carried out in the streets of the centre just as it has always been, passed down orally and by imitation across generations of Isernia's women.

The documented roots of this tradition go back at least to the convent of Santa Maria delle Monache, where in 1503 the nuns produced lace and trimmings and taught the craft to the young women of the area. But even older traces emerge from fourteenth- and fifteenth-century inventories, where the term *radizellis* appears, denoting a primitive form of woven netting. Isernia lace is distinguished by the thread used: a fine, lustrous ivory-coloured yarn, produced locally, which gives the lace a particular sheen and sets it apart from the output of other Italian schools, from Cantù to Burano.

In 1853, at the exhibition of the industrial products of the Kingdom of Naples held in Naples, Molise was already represented with its lace. A few decades later, in 1872, the painter Gioacchino Toma captured the scene in a painting titled *Scuola per merlettaie cieche* (School for Blind Lacemakers), now in a private collection, which testifies to how deeply rooted the art of bobbin lace was in the daily life of the town. A travel writer, in a text known as *Viaggio in Molise* (Journey through Molise), wrote that «all the women of Isernia work at the tombolo» and described the movement of the bobbins as an «airy, musical motion of the fingers».

Today the continuity of this practice also rests on organised initiatives. Every summer the historic centre hosts the Borgo del Merletto (Lace Village), an event curated by the association Il Merletto d'Isernia — Arte nelle Mani. In July 2025 the event took on an explicitly international dimension, bringing together Italian and European associations under the title *Il Merletto di Isernia incontra l'Europa* (Isernia Lace Meets Europe), with workshops, meetings and demonstrations. The presence of lacemakers from other countries turned the square into a place of technical exchange between different traditions, united by the same tool and the same logic of hand-woven thread.

The question running through these gatherings is a concrete one: finding new practitioners, particularly among the young, to ensure that the transmission of this knowledge does not break off. Bobbin lace requires years of learning, a specific posture, the ability to read the perforated pattern card that serves as a guide. It is not a technique that can be improvised, nor one that can be delegated to a machine. Precisely for this reason, its survival depends on the deliberate choice of those who decide to sit down and learn, in a town that still carries in its urban fabric the mark of that choice, made generation after generation by the women who came before.