The looms of Ypres, Middelburg, Alost, Lille, Valenciennes, Douay and Oudenarde flourished during the fifteenth century. To this list we must add the fine looms of Bruges, established by Philip the Good, which for a time eclipsed all others in Flanders. After Bruges supplied this Duke of Burgundy with _The History of the Sacrament_ and “two chambers of tapestry” in 1440, many commissions were received from foreign countries. The Medicis and other Italian families ordered rich sets, but they supplied their own cartoons by Andrea Mantegna, Leonardo da Vinci and other great painters.
Bruges, doubtless, owed no little of its fame as a centre for fine tapestry to the Flemish artists, Memling and the Van Eycks and their school who lived there. It is believed that the famous tapestry that found a home in the Château des Aygalades, representing the marriage of Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany, under the allegorical figures of Esther and Ahasuerus, was made in Bruges. The cartoons have been attributed to the school of Van Eyck.
In 1449–53, Philip ordered from Tournay _The History of Gideon_ and _The Story of the Golden Fleece_ in eight pieces.
In 1430, one Jean Hosemant, a tapestry-weaver of Tournay, was in Avignon and the Pope’s chamberlain, the Archbishop of Narbonne, ordered him to make “a tapestried chamber on the hangings of which were to be represented foliage, trees, meadows, rivers and clouds, as well as birds and quadrupeds.” Italy also attracted the French and Flemish weavers to learn their secrets, and they flocked in numbers to Rome and other cities. Their work was in such demand that the Flemish workers found encouragement everywhere; and in the fifteenth century they emigrated to England, Spain, Italy and even Hungary.
Rinaldo Boteram of Brussels was in charge of the workshop in the court of the Gonzagas in Mantua, where Andrea Mantegna was employed to design the cartoons. Jehan de Bruges and Valentin d’Arras directed the workshops in Venice as early as 1421; Giacomo d’Angelo the Fleming had charge of the Marquis d’Este’s tapestries at Ferrara with a large number of Flemish weavers under him. Flemish workmen and master workmen were engaged in Siena, Florence, Correggio, Urbino and also by the Sforzas in Milan.