ARAZZO. — It is a special textile made on a high- and low-heddle loom with threads of wool and colored silk in many gradations, and sometimes also with gold and silver threads; it is ordinarily used as a decoration for walls. It is always figurative; but the figurative theme, with the exception of the border, is never symmetrical or repeated, and for this reason, as well as on account of the weaving technique, it differs from the carpet. Although the cartoons are often supplied by painters, the tapestry-maker interprets the figures according to the requirements of his technique and with considerable freedom also as regards style. A few rare German examples from the 13th century are still technically indistinguishable from carpets. In the 14th century and the early years of the following century, the manufactories of Paris and Arras predominated; from the latter derives the Italian name for such products. The series of a. with scenes from the Apocalypse in the cathedral of Angers, and the other with scenes from the lives of saints in that of Tournai (1402), are respectively the most significant examples of the two workshops.
But already at the beginning of the 15th century, Flemish tapestry-makers attained a supremacy that they would retain for more than two centuries. The series of the Passion in S. Marco in Venice (1450) belongs to the Tournai manufactory. Although painters from all countries supplied cartoons to the Flemish tapestry-makers, they always impressed upon their works a local character, deriving for the most part from the pictorial vision of Roger van der Weyden or Memling. The Brussels manufactory developed and established the characteristics of borders and attained the highest artistic expression with the series of the Acts of the Apostles (1515–19), based on cartoons by Raffaello (Vatican), or with that of the Apocalypse in Madrid (mid-16th century). In 1662, with the foundation of the royal Gobelins manufactory in Paris, French tapestry-making flourished anew; cartoons were supplied by the followers of Rubens and by the academic and classicizing painters of the 17th century. Sacred representations then became rarer and almost disappeared in the Beauvais manufactory, which dominated the following century, while a., by then almost assimilated to painting on account of its many thousands of hues, followed its stylistic developments ever more closely and rapidly declined.
In Italy the art of a. was imported in the 15th century by Flemish artisans, who for a long time dominated production, imposing the style as well. Between the 15th and 16th centuries, the manufactories of Ferrara and Mantua established themselves with the series of s. Giorgio and s. Maurilio (Ferrara, Duomo), of the life of Mary (Como, Duomo), of Moses (Milan, Duomo), etc. The Florentine one rose to a high artistic level with the series of Joseph (Pal. Pitti, Quirinale), based on cartoons by Bronzino and other Tuscan Mannerists; with those of the Old Testament, based on cartoons by A. Allori; and with that of the Passion, based on cartoons by Cigoli and Albani. While the Roman manufactories exhausted themselves in repeating celebrated paintings, those of Turin and Na-
ARAZZO. – The Maries at the Sepulchre and Noli me tangere. A. based on a cartoon by Zanino di Pietro (15th century) – Venice, Museum of the Basilica of S. Marco.
Naples, which reached their greatest splendor in the eighteenth century, are predominantly oriented toward secular subjects.