I bought some antique linen and lace in the local market the other day in Tuscany… now I can’t find them, got a feeling I threw them out with the bag, eek and textiles seem to be difficult to locate and I was  probably looking in the wrong places.
I did find a shop that sold beautiful hand woven Jacquard and I bought three lovely pieces… 
They are cotton and Linen blend and are quite lovely. Silk Jacquard is  famous. in Italy.
Originally the Jacquard machines were mechanical and the fabric design was stored in a series of punched cards which were joined together to form a continuous chain. The Jacquards often were small and only independently controlled a relatively few warp ends. This required a number of repeats across the loom width. Larger capacity machines, or the use of multiple machines, allowed greater control, with fewer repeats, and hence larger designs to be woven across the loom width.
Now of course it is all electronic.
I visited a Jacquard factory in Ireland and also one in India.