The Eighteenth century is the century of elegance, of the intellectuals, of the continuous exchanges between Italy, France, and Austria. Everyday life, especially of the aristocratic and upper classes, becomes frivolous, noisy and fun-loving. Venice celebrates the magnificent luxuries of her golden century (the end of the glorious Republic was in 1797) and happily goes from a party to a theatre, from a banquet to a carnival ball. The cafés become cultural meeting places and the vogue of the "casini" starts spreading. They are elegant apartments around St. Mark’s square and the theatres, places where the Venetians used to play and have fun.

In this period the most important types of lace are those made with PUNTO BURANO, PUNTO VENEZIA PIATTO.

We are inside a Venetian ridotto, a place where it is possible to play cards, have nice conversations or even engage in a romantic affair. The face mask is obligatory both for men and women; the larva (a face mask), black at first, and then white, covers half the face, and it is completed with the lacy bauta (BLONDA) made of black silk which covers the head, the chest and the shoulders, the black silk tabarro (mantle) and the tricorno.

The first couple is standing beside the open door: the man is welcoming the lady in white, offering her a precious half-closed fan and staring intensely at her eyes. The second lady is using a rather showy French fan – a love token - to partially shade her face, while she is whispering something to a man leaning on a walking stick.

• The Blonda is a bobbin lace worked with continuous thread that had been made since the seventeenth century with raw silk (hence the honey colour) or in black or polychrome silk and metallic threads. It is not a very expensive lace, unless it is made with gold or silver threads. In Venice the black silk Blonda was widely used for the baute, worn by men and women; the blonda was also in great demand in Spain for the realization of the mantillas, used since the seventeenth century. (A. Kraatz, Merletti, Milan, 1988, p.95).
• It is documented how in 1787 the interest in the needle lace made in Alençon and Argentan was quickly vanishing in favour of the Blonda. According to the Duchess d'Abrantès, the Blonda, like any other light and transparent lace, was mostly used during the summer, while needle lace was considered more appropriate for the winter. Marie Antoinette, in the last years of her reign, used to wear large quantities of this type of lace. (M. Jourdain, Old Lace, a Handbook for Collectors, London, 1908, pp.105-106).
• The showing-off, the cajoleries, the trifles, the absent-minded smiles, the lip biting, together with gracious and skilled movements of the fan, were the acts of a seductive comedy of the body, executed with masterly skill by the ladies of the eighteenth century. Resting on the cheeks, on the breasts, near the eyes, open, closed, turned over, the fan announced anger, pleasure, fear, anxiety, in a sort of language invented almost as a game. (A. Cantagallo, Sua maestà il ventaglio, Foligno, 1993, pp.111-114).
• Madame de Staël used to say about the fan: "There are many ways to use this precious trinket. Watching the way women use it we can tell the princess from the countess, the marquise from the lower-class woman". Moreover, besides the language spoken by these movements, we must remember the symbolic code of colours and themes, especially floral themes. For instance, the flower of the aconitum means "platonic love", the jonquil "intense desire", the passionflower "patience", the pansy "I am always thinking about you". (A. Cantagallo, Sua maestà il ventaglio, Foligno, 1993, p.113).
• It can be correctly said that for about half the year the Venetians used to go around the city wearing a mask. This was allowed not only during the famous Carnival, but also on many other occasions: the Sensa, (Ascension day), the elections of the Doges, the marriages of the sons and daughters of the Doges, and so on. During the Carnival, masked men and women crowded the theatres and the ladies had to wear the bauta to enter. The other places where the masqueraders used to go were the ridotti - meeting places inside private houses, near the theatres - and the cafes, that, at Carnival, were open day and night. (L. Urban, Carnevale a Venezia Maschere e Costumi, Italia).
• Carlo Goldoni, who, in his comedies and Memorie, left us, between 1736 and 1787, one of the most complete frescoes of everyday life in (mostly, but not only) Venice, describing many contemporary fashions, to the point of being defined "society reporter", talks about lace too. In his Il bugiardo, for instance, written in 1750, he narrates that Lelio commissioned to Brighella the purchase of "quaranta braccia di bionda" (forty ells of bionda), (act I, scene XII) for his costume. Since in Venice the brazzo used to measure silk was equal to about 63,7-8 centimetres, it was about 25,48 meters of a nice, but not exceptional moderately price lace. Brighella (Act III, last scene) says he has paid "ten sequins" to the haberdasher at the "Insegna del Gatto"; given that a Venetian sequin was equal to 4 grams of gold, compared with the current value of a gram of gold, around 25 euros, 10 sequins are equal to 40 grams of gold, presently about 1,000 euro. (D. Davanzo Poli, Schegge goldoniane di moda, in "Quaderno 6", Venice, 1994).
• In the Adulatore, dated 1750, a story set in Naples, in the conversation between Elvira and Luigi (Act I, scene XV) we get to know that 20 ells (roughly 13 meters) of a not better defined "fashionable lace" can cost up to 4 sequins an ell, for a total of 80 sequins, or about (according the above-mentioned comparison) 8,000 euro. (D. Davanzo Poli, Schegge goldoniane di moda, in "Quaderno 6", Venice, 1994).
• Around the mid eighteenth century, Giovanni Grevembroch wrote and designed for the nobleman Grimani, four volumes entitled: Gli abiti de Veneziani di quasi ogni età (meaning with età the historical period), that can be considered a sort of dictionary of the arts and crafts. Regarding the "Buranelle" (women from the isle of Burano), he says that although in the past they had been celebrated for their "ability … in the art of the Punto in Aere, and because they created with their hands those unparalleled and expensive lace, so appreciated by Venetian brides and ladies"; and they also made "gold and silver lace", in those years of decadence they were forced "to make a living" going "by boat every day to Venice to beg or to do some domestic work". These words are evidence of the disappearance of lace from the fashion stage. (G. Grevembroch, Gli abiti de Veneziani…, sec. XVIII, t. III, ff. 103v-104r, Venice, Museo Correr).