ed
with M. Wauters, the Fleming.[13] The former was especially concerned
with the pieces now owned by the Cathedral of St. John, the Divine,
in New York, and which are signed with his name. Romanelli was the
artist of the cartoons, and his fame is almost too well known to dwell
upon. His portrait, in tapestry, hangs in the Louvre, for in Paris he
gained much fame at the Court of Louis XIV, where he painted portraits
of the Grand Monarch, who never wearied of seeing his own magnificence
fixed on canvas.

It was the hard fate of the Barberini family to lose power and wealth
after the death of their powerful member, Pope Urban VIII, in 1644.
Their wealth and influence were the shining mark for the arrows of
envy, so it was to be expected that when the next pope, Innocent X,
was elected, they were robbed of riches and driven out of the country
into France. This ended for a time the work of the tapestry factory,
but later the family returned and work was resumed to the extent of
weaving a superb series picturing scenes especially connected with the
glory of the family, and entitled _History of Urban VIII_.

Although Italy is growing daily in power and riches under her new
policy of political unity, there were dreary years of heavy expense
and light income for many of her famous families, and it was during
such an era that the Barberini family consented to let their
tapestries pass out from the doors of the palace they were woven to
decorate. In 1889, the late Charles M. Ffoulke, Esq., became the
possessor of all the Barberini hangings, and added them to his famous
collection. Thus through the enterprise and the fine artistic
appreciation of Mr. Ffoulke, is America able to enjoy the best
expression of Italian tapestry of the Seventeenth Century.

The part that Venice ever played in the history of tapestry is the
splendid one of consumer. In her Oriental magnificence she exhibited
in palace and pageant the superb products of labour which others had
executed. Without tapestries her big stone palaces would have lacked
the note of soft luxury, without coloured hangings her balconies would
have been but dull settings for languid ladies, and her water-parades
would have missed the wondrous colour that the Venetian loves. Yet to
her rich market flowed the product of Europe in such exhaustless
stream that she became connoisseur-consumer only, nor felt the need of
serious producing. Workshops there were, from time to time, but they