SIENA AND PESARO.
Well-nigh all the history we have of the early artistic pottery of SIENA
may be read upon the specimens of her produce, preserved in our museums
and private collections. A considerable number of pieces, evidently the
work of one able hand, has been variously assigned to the furnaces of
Faenza, of Caffaggiolo, and of Pesaro; to the first two from a general
similarity in the character of their design. On the other hand, the
initials I. P. occurring in large characters on the reverse of some of
the pieces were presumed to be those of the words “In Pesaro,” and led
to a confusion of them with others really painted at the Lanfranchi
works at Pesaro and marked with the same initials but in a smaller form;
standing for the signature of the artist, “_jiacomo pinsit_.” These
last, then unknown to collectors, were cited by Passeri who was supposed
to refer to the far more beautiful works now under consideration.
The acquisition, however, of a pavement of tiles from the Petrucci
palace at Siena, dated 1509, and the knowledge of the existence of
others of a similar stamp in the church of San Francesco in that city,
the style of handling as well as the design and colouring upon which
agreed closely with these works; a fine dish in the British museum in
the same manner, and on which occurs one of the same coats of arms as
those upon the pavement of the Petrucci; and the further acquisition of
a small plate, the painting of which in blue camaïeu is assuredly in the
manner of the finer examples above referred to, and which is signed on
the reverse “_fata i Siena da mº benedetto_;” form together a chain of
evidence conclusive as to the existence of this fabrique, and the origin
of the various pieces in question.
The South Kensington museum possesses very important specimens of this
master’s work; and the connexion of the
[Illustration]
several examples is very minutely traced in the large catalogue of
Maiolica. We need only, therefore, generally observe that they are
worthy of being ranked among the most excellent productions of the
potter’s skill in Italy during the earlier years of the 16th century;
and that in respect of their technical characteristics, and the tone and
manner of their colouring and design, they are more nearly allied to the
productions of the Caffaggiolo furnaces, from which in all probability
the inspiration of them was derived. We give woodcuts of three of these
beautiful pieces: nos. 1569, 1792, and 4487. The last of these is very
interesting on account of the mark and inscription upon the reverse
(also engraved p. 99), showing that the painter was probably Benedetto
himself, who was then the head of the establishment. The drawing of the
central figure is masterly and finished with the utmost care.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
One of the finest specimens of this master belongs to Mr. Henderson; the
central subject is that of Mutius Scævola before Porsenna; it is painted
with great care and is surrounded by a border of grotesques on orange
ground. On the reverse is the mark in the accompanying woodcut. The
grotesques upon the border of a large dish in the British museum are
painted upon a black ground, an unusual style which also occurs on some
of the tiles of the Petrucci pavement, and is we believe almost peculiar
to this botega.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
We lose sight of the Sienese pottery for two centuries, when it again
appears under the then best ceramic painter in Italy, Ferdinando Maria
Campani who is said, but we do not know on what exact authority, to
have worked also at Castelli and at San Quirico. A piece signed by him
is at South Kensington. His subjects, as in this instance, were
frequently taken from the Bible series of Raffaelle as rendered by Marc
Antonio’s engravings, and from the works of the Caracci. Some extremely
well executed tiles, plates, &c. copied and adapted from the old, have
also been produced within the last few years at Siena under the
superintendence of signor Pepi, a druggist, opposite the Prefecture. We
have occasionally met with some of these, scratched and chipped by other
_artists_ to suit the modern-antique market.
The small town of MONTE LUPO, nestling under its “rocca” on the southern
bank of the river at the opening of the Val d’ Arno inferiore, is on the
road from Florence and near to Empoli. Its pottery is distinguished (or
we should rather say notorious) for having produced the ugliest and most
inferior painted pieces that bear the signature of their maker and the
place where they were made.
But a ware of a different kind formed of a red clay and glazed with a
rich treacle-brown or black glaze, the forms of the pieces being
sometimes extremely elegant, has been also assigned to this locality.
Some of them are enriched with gilding and with subjects painted in oil
colours, not by a ceramic artist. We are informed, however, by signor
Giuseppe Raffaelli that wares of this description were made at Castel
Durante, and that a fine example of them, with portraits of a count
Maldini and his wife, is preserved in the library at Urbania. He
describes them as made of a red earth covered with an intensely black
glaze, on which the oil painting and gilding were executed. It is
nevertheless probable that Monte Lupo produced a similar ware, and
pieces occur ornamented with reliefs and with raised work, _engobé_,
with a white or yellow clay on the brown ground, by the process known as
_pâte sur pâte_. Certain pieces marbled on the surface to imitate
tortoiseshell, agate, &c. are ascribed to this pottery.
At Sèvres is a tazza with ill painted subject on white ground and
inscribed,--
“_Dipinta, Giovinale Tereni_
“_da Montelupo._”
and a dish in the hôtel Cluny at Paris, painted with the subject of the
rape of Helen somewhat in the manner of the Urbino wares, has at the
back,
“_Vrate délina_
“_fate in Monte._”
[Illustration]
This, we think, more likely to have been the production of Monte Lupo
than of Monte Feltro, to which it has been ascribed.
There can be little doubt that potteries existed in the neighbourhood of
the important commercial city of PISA, and it is more than probable that
the painted and incised _bacini_, which are encrusted into her church
towers and façades, are mostly of local manufacture during the 12th,
13th, and 14th centuries. On this subject we must refer the reader to
the remarks in the chapter on Persian and Hispano-moresque wares. Among
the latter, references will be found to two writers who stated that a
commerce existed between Valencia and Pisa, from whence faïence was
imported into Spain in exchange for the wares of that country. It does
not however follow that this faïence was entirely of Pisan production,
although exported thence; but it is not improbable that a considerable
quantity was made there for exportation.
Antonio Beuter, praising the wares of Spain, says that they are equal in
beauty to those of Pisa and other places. This was about 1550. Early in
the next century Escolano says, speaking of the wares of Manises, “that
in exchange for the faïences that Italy sends us from Pisa, we export to
that country cargoes of that of Manises.”
In the collection of baron Alphonse de Rothschild, of Paris, is a large
and well formed vase with serpent handles, under which the name PISA is
inscribed on tablets. It is much in the manner of the later Urbino
wares, having grotesques on a white ground, but more nearly approaching
those examples at South Kensington (nos. 321 and 323) having the arms of
the Medici, which we have ascribed in the large catalogue to Caffaggiolo
or Florence. It has been suggested that this vase may be of the Pesaro
fabrique, and that the word upon it was merely a variation in spelling
the first half of the name Pisa_ro_; but we see no reason for accepting
such an explanation or that Pisa should be denied the small honour of
having produced this example, the only one inscribed with her name.
There can be very little doubt that a manufactory of glazed earthenware
existed at PESARO or in its immediate outskirts from a very early
period, and that it probably succeeded to the works established there in
Roman times, the remains of which have occasionally been brought to
light; but with the exception of the recorded names of certain potters,
occurring in deeds and records which are preserved among the public
archives of the city, we are uninformed, and unable to recognize the
produce of these potteries or to know their characteristics.
Anterior to 1540 we have no signed and dated example, and should
therefore be reduced to the position of entire ignorance as to their
previous productions but for the work of the indefatigable archæologist
Giambattista Passeri. Born in 1694 at Farnese in the Campagna di Roma
(where his father, of a patrician family of Pesaro, practised as a
physician) and educated at Rome, he subsequently settled in his parental
city and published the “Istoria delle pitture in Maiolica fatte in
Pesaro e in luoghi circonvicini,” in 1758. To him we are indebted for
the notice of the potters above alluded to, and in his work he gives us
an account of the mode pursued in the manufacture, much of which however
he appears to have derived from the earlier manuscript of Piccolpasso.
He tells us that the large early bacili enriched with a _madreperla_
lustre were the produce of Pesaro; and in corroboration states that many
of them are painted with the coats of arms and portraits of the members
of noble Pesarese families, instancing one with the arms of the
“Bergnana” family then preserved in the Casa Olivieri. It has been
objected that Passeri was influenced by local partiality in favour of
the native city of his family, and that he ascribed to her furnaces what
may in equal likelihood have been produced at Gubbio or Diruta; and the
discovery of a few pieces of lustred ware, marked as the produce of the
latter _Castello_ in the middle of the 16th century, was hailed by
several critics as conclusive evidence against his assertion.
It appears to the writer that such evidence is equally unsatisfactory,
inasmuch as the works in question were produced some century and a half
anterior to the earliest dated piece of Diruta ware. Passeri wrote in
the middle of the last century, when the art was no longer in existence
and its specimens only preserved in the cabinets of the curious; but he
was a man of erudition and research and probably had means of obtaining
information with which we are unacquainted; we think therefore that as
his statements have not yet been met by proofs of their incorrectness,
or by counter-statements of greater weight, we are bound to accept them
until additional light be thrown upon the subject. He tells us that
remains of antique furnaces and ruins of a vase shop of classic times,
with fragments of red and black wares and lamps marked with the letter
G, were found in the locality known as the “Gabbice” where the
Lanfranchi works were afterwards established in the 16th century, and
where the earth is of fine quality. He traces the use of this earth in
the time of the Goths, and states that it again revived under the
government of the Malatesta; and that soon afterwards a mode of adorning
churches was adopted by the insertion of discs of earthenware at first
simply glazed with the oxide of lead, but that coloured ones were
subsequently used.
The wares were made by covering the crude baked clay with a slip or
_engobe_ of white earth, the “_terra di San Giovanni_” from Siena, or
with that of Verona, and glazing it with “_marzacotto_,” a mixture of
oxide of lead, sand and potash. The colours, used were yellow, green,
manganese black, and cobalt blue (from the “_zaffara_” of the Levant).
During the government of the Sforza the manufacture greatly developed
and was protected, for on 1st April 1486 a decree was made prohibiting
the introduction of earthenwares for sale from other parts, except the
jars for oil and water. This was confirmed in 1508. In 1510 a document
enumerates “_Maiolica_” as one of the trades of Pesaro, naming also
“_figoli_,” “_vasai_,” and “_boccalari_;” and we must bear in mind that
there is good reason for believing that at that period “Maiolica” was a
name technically understood as applying only to the lustred wares.
Passeri states that about 1450 the “_invetriatura_” or glazing had
already begun to perfect itself under the Sforza, when those early
pieces were produced decorated with “arabesque” borders encircling coats
of arms, portraits, and ideal heads outlined with manganese and
coloured with the “_madreperla_” lustre, leaving the flesh white. He
ascribes the improvement in the manufacture by the use of the
stanniferous glaze to the discovery of the Della Robbia, and adds that,
although the art of making it was known
[Illustration]
earlier at Florence, the fine ware was only introduced at Pesaro about
1500: near which period the beautiful portrait dish which we engrave
(no. 4078 at Kensington) was probably made. Here he again says that the
lustred ware derived its name from the pottery of Maiolica, and that the
earlier and coarser varieties were known as “_Mezza-maiolica_.” Guid’
Ubaldo II. greatly encouraged the art, and in 1552 granted to Bernardin
Gagliardino, Girolamo Lanfranchi, Ranaldo and others an edict
prohibiting the importation of other wares for sale, thus confirming the
former acts, which would appear to have fallen into neglect: and in the
year 1562, on the 1st of June, he granted another, confirming to Giacomo
Lanfranco a protection of his art or patent for applying real gold to
his wares.
Passeri then (after some further historical details) describes examples
of the glazed and enamelled pottery of Pesaro which he had seen, and the
earliest he refers to are floorings of tiles existing in his time, upon
one of which, brought to him by a workman, was inscribed
+----------------+
| adi 4 de Genar |
| o. in Pesaro. |
+----------------+
and on the other
+-------+
| 1502. |
+-------+
A considerable period elapses between this and the next dated example, a
plate, with the subject of Horatius Codes, inscribed,--
_Orazio solo contro Toscana tutta._
_Fatto in Pesaro. 1541._
On another (a companion of a plate preserved in the Louvre),
_l Pianetto di Marte_
_fatto in Pesaro 1542_
_in bottega da Mastro Gironimo Vasaro. I.P._
He further mentions a plate having a mark consisting of the initials O A
connected by a cross, and a bas-relief with the same initials which
again occur sculptured over a door, which he suggests may have been that
of the potter’s house; we should, however, be more disposed to regard it
as a conventual or cathedral monogram.
We will now leave the work of Passeri and quote another record of the
pottery made at Pesaro a short time before the 16th century, returning
to him for information on the revival of the art at that locality in the
last.
Dennistoun in his history of the dukes of Urbino (vol. 3, p. 388)
refers to a letter among the diplomatic archives of the duchy preserved
at Florence dated 1474, from pope Sextus IV. in which he thanks Costanzo
Sforza, lord of Pesaro, for a present of
[Illustration]
most elegantly wrought earthen vases which for the donor’s sake are
prized as much as gold or silver instead of earthenware. Another letter
from Lorenzo the magnificent to Roberto Malatesta of Pesaro, thanking
him for a similar present, says, “they please me entirely by their
perfection and rarity, being quite novelties in these parts, and are
valued more than if of silver, the donor’s arms serving daily to recall
their origin.” There is every reason for assuming that both these
presents consisted of wares produced at the Pesaro furnaces.
These wares must have been looked upon as “novelties” at Florence, not
simply because they were painted on flat surfaces covered with
stanniferous glaze (for Luca della Robbia had done this many years
before) but because, being decorated with rich metallic glaze and
madreperla lustre, they probably were novelties to the Florentines as
productions of an Italian pottery. If this inference be correct, may not
another be drawn from it? That these presents being the produce of
Pesaro, and enriched with the metallic lustre, we may derive from the
whole matter an additional proof that the early lustred pieces, whose
origin has been disputed, were really made at that city; and that we may
agree with Passeri in ascribing the well-known “bacili” to that place.
Engraved p. 107 is a fine lustred _bacile_ at South Kensington, probably
of Pesaro ware, and about the year 1510.
The earliest dated Pesaro piece is in the possession of the writer. It
is a “_fruttiera_” which is painted the creation of animals by the
Almighty, Who, moving in the midst, is surrounded by animals rising out
of the ground; a distant landscape, with a town (!) on the side of a
steep mountain, forms the background.
On the reverse is inscribed as in the woodcut on the next page,
1540.
_Chrianite anim_
_allis Christtus_
_fatto in Pesaro._
We have seen some large dishes decorated with raised masks, strapwork,
&c. and painted with grotesques on a white ground, and subject panels,
and other grandiose pieces which are ascribed to the Urbino artists, but
which may in equal likelihood be attributed to the Lanfranchi of Pesaro.
A triangular plateau in the possession of Mrs. Hope has the character
of their finest productions.
[Illustration]
The art at Pesaro rapidly declined after 1560, wanting the encouragement
of a reigning ducal court; and Passeri ascribes much evil influence to
what he considers the bad taste of preferring the unmeaning designs of
the oriental porcelain, which was greatly prized by the wealthy, and the
painting after the prints of the later German school of Sadeler, &c. to
the grander works of the old masters; the landscapes were, however, well
executed. He gives us also a history of the revival of the manufacture
in his own time, under the influence and encouragement of the cardinal
prelate Ludovico Merlini. In 1718 there was only one potter at Pesaro,
Alfonzo Marzi, who produced the most ordinary wares. In 1757 signor
Giuseppe Bertolucci, an accomplished ceramist of Urbania, in conjunction
with signor Francesco di Fattori, engaged workmen and artists and
commenced a fabrique, but it was soon abandoned. Again in 1763 signors
Antonio Casali and Filippo Antonio Caligari, both of Lodi, came to
Pesaro and were joined by Pietro Lei da Sassuolo of Modena, an able
painter on Maiolica; they established a fabrique producing wares of
great excellence hardly to be distinguished from the Chinese. In the
Debruge-Labarte collection was a one-handled jug or pot, painted with
flowers in white medallions on a blue ground, and on the foot engraven
in the paste--
“Pesaro 1771.”
A manufacture at present exists of painted tiles for pavement, removed
to Pesaro from Urbania, and which at one time produced vases and plates
in the manner of the Urbino istoriati pieces as also lustred wares after
the style of M. Giorgio. It has, we are informed, ceased making these
imitations and now confines itself to the first-named class of goods.