From remote antiquity the button has played a conspicuous part in China as a distinctive badge of rauk; thus we read of the Mandarin, of the Crystal, Jasper, or Coral Button, but curiously enough, it was unknown to ancient Greece and Rome; surviving mosaics ad sculp. tures show not a trace of it. In the Middle Ages, Europe was. buttonlers; medieval writings make it clear that ribbons, clasps, and pins, for skewers were sed to fasten the garments of both men and women. The pulton was not known in Frazee until the 16th century, when it came in the train of the lanose from Italy, where Benvenuto Cellini's genius created an incomparable design for a_ button for the Pontifical robes. Hew did the button reach Italy? There may be a connexion between the Ttaliaa adoption of it and the discoveries made in the Far East by European navigators; perhaps it was brought direct from China by some hardy Genoese or Venetian voyager, It was favoured by the French Court of Henri IT, as portraits of the princes and princesses of the House of Valois chow; ina contemporary Lortrait of Mary ere literally starred with small buttons, for ornament, however, not for use, and adding' to the comlications of the dress of the period.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.