James Dennistoun

Of the manufacture of majolica in the Duchy of Urbino.

THE influence of beauty upon arts usually considered as mechanical, and the exercise of creative talent upon substances of a common or trifling character, are equally proofs of a pervading refinement. It was accordingly a striking feature of Italy in her golden days, that nearly every sort of handiwork felt that influence, and in its turn served to maintain public taste at an elevated standard. To uncultivated or unobservant minds it may seem ridiculous to appreciate the state of high art in a country from the forms of culinary utensils, the colouring of plates, or the carving of a peach-stone; yet the elegance of Etruscan civilisation is nowhere more manifest than in household bronzes; the majolica of Urbino has preserved the designs and the feeling of Raffaele; the genius of Cellini did not spurn the most homely materials. The architects of the Revival were often sculptors; its engineers constructed clocks; while painters then exercised the crafts of jewellery and wood-gilding, or lent their pencils to beautify the potter's handiwork. Our undertaking would accordingly be incomplete without some notice of majolica, or decorative pottery, which under the patronage of her princes brought fame and wealth to the duchy of Urbino.[238]

The earliest work on the ceramic art is that of Giambattista Passeri of Pesaro, who was born about a hundred and fifty years since, and whose inquiries into geology and antiquities attracted him to a subject cognate to them both. While studying the fossils of Central Italy, the transition was not difficult to their fictile products; and after vainly endeavouring to methodise the pottery of Etruria and Magna Grecia, he tried the same good office with better success upon the majolica of his native province.[239] Nor is his theme of so narrow an interest as might on a superficial view be supposed. The existence of pottery has frequently proved a valuable aid to historical research; and even now our surest test of Etruscan refinement is supplied by the painted vases exhumed from the sepulchres of an almost forgotten race.[240] It is not, however, important merely as affording landmarks useful in tracing the civilisation of nations; for, by combining taste with ingenuity, it gives to materials the most ordinary and almost fabulous value, thereby constituting one of the notable triumphs of mind over matter, and largely promoting the advance of intellectual culture. Even in early stages of national improvement, the plastic art, after contributing to the necessities of life, has often been the first to inspire elegance or embody true principles of form and afterwards of colour. Dealing with a substance readily found and easily manipulated, wherein nature might be imitated or fancy developed, it was the precursor of sculpture, the patron of painting, and the handmaid of architecture.

majolica

MAIOLICA

A plate of Urbino ware of about 1540 in the British Museum

The earthenware made in Central Italy was usually called majolica, in our spelling maiolica. The derivation of its etymology, from the island of Majorca, seems no mere superficial inference from similarity of sounds. Its peculiarity was a glaze, which, besides giving a vehicle for colour, remedied the permeable quality of ancient pottery. Such a glazed surface had long been known to the Saracens, and was imported by the Moors into Spain and the Balearic Isles, in the shape of gaily-tinted tiles, arranged in bands or diaper on their buildings. To these succeeded azulejos, generally of blue in various shades, which were mosaicked into church walls in various historical compositions, from designs which Mr. Stirling ascribes to Murillo's pencil. The conquests or commerce of the Pisans imported this fashion, at first by incorporating concave coloured tiles among brickwork, afterwards, at Pesaro, by the use of encaustic flooring. Nor can we exclude from view that the earliest Italian ware has decorations either in geometrical patterns, or with shamrock-shaped foliations of a character rather Saracenic than indigenous, and more indicative of moresque extraction than were the apocryphal armorial bearings of Spain and Majorca, at a period when such insignia were often borrowed as mere ornaments, in ignorance of their origin and meaning. The fabric thus introduced spread over most of Central Italy, and between 1450 and 1700 was largely practised at the towns of Arezzo, Perugia, Spello, Nocera, CittÀ di Castello, Florence, Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna, Rimini, ForlÌ, and Faenza (whence its French name fayence), Pesaro, Urbino, Fermignano, Castel Durante, and Gubbio, as well as at various places in the Abruzzi.

There is, however, another quarter to which vitrified or encaustic ware may be ascribed, in so far at least as regards improved methods and more important results. Luca della Robbia[*241] was born at Florence in 1399, and from being a jeweller, took to modelling statues and bas-reliefs in clay. Annoyed by the fragile nature of these, and perhaps by the doubtful success of terra cotta, he discovered a mode of glazing the surface of his beautiful works, with, it is said, a mixture of tin, terra ghetta (from the lake of Thrasimene), antimony, and other mineral substances. The secret of this varnish was transmitted in the inventor's family until about 1550: it ended in a female, with whose husband, Andrea Benedetto Buglione, it died. Recent attempts to revive the art at Florence have proved but partially successful, and wholly unremunerative; indeed, the mechanical difficulties exceed those of sculpture, including the separation of the work into sections before drying and burning it, and its eventual reunion into one piece. Although neither mild nor equal, the climate at Florence does not seem to influence the Robbian fabrics in the open air, but they have suffered from the frosts and snows of our duchy, where several are broken or blistered, such as the lunette of S. Domenico at Urbino. By much the finest specimen I know there remains [1843] in the desecrated oratory of the Sforzan palace [of 1484] at Gradara; it may be by Andrea della Robbia, and represents an enthroned Madonna and Child, nearly life-size, with attendant saints, the predella complete, and the whole a fine monument of Christian art. Originally, the plastic surface of Robbian ware was of a uniform glistening white, which, though cold in effect, is very favourable to the pure religious sentiment at which it generally aimed. The eyes were then blackened, in order to aid expression. Next, the pallid figures were relieved against a deep cerulean ground. The followers of Luca added fruits and flowers, wreathed in their proper colours. Agincourt justly regrets that these men were led into such innovations by a desire for mastering difficulties, and the ambition of adding to sculpture the beauties of painting; for when colour is given to draperies, the eye is ill-reconciled to an addition which seems to transfer such productions from the category of high art to the level of waxwork. By a further modification, the flesh parts were left unglazed, bringing the warm tone of terra cotta to harmonize with the coloured costumes, architecture and backgrounds being still usually white or deep blue. Passeri, however, asserts for this coloured glaze an earlier discovery in his own province, where pottery was certainly made in the fourteenth century. But it is generally admitted that the art of combining with it lively colours was greatly improved after Pesaro had passed under the Sforza. In 1462, Ventura di Maestro Simone dei Piccolomini of Siena established himself there, along with Matteo di Raniere, of a noble family at Cagli, in order to manufacture earthenware, and may have directed attention to the productions of della Robbia, who had already been employed at Rimini by its tyrant, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta.

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An account of majolica[*242] ought to contain the various places noted for its manufacture, the peculiar qualities distinguishing their respective productions, the methods by which these qualities were given, and the artists most successful in producing them. But on most of these points we are left in great ignorance, which my limited observation has not enabled me to dispel. All I can offer is a list of the manufactories and artists, classed to the best of my power, and preceded by a few very general notices of the process.

The Chevalier Cipriano Picolpasso, of Castel Durante, doctor in medicine and majolica-painter under Duke Guidobaldo II., left a MS. professing to record the secrets of his art; but Passeri, after examination, pronounces his revelations trite, and his historical notices barren. It is, however, agreed that Pesaro was the first site within the duchy of Urbino where the fabric attained celebrity, and that its earliest efforts were called mezza or "half" majolica. This is distinguished by a coarse gritty fracture, of dirty grey colour, and a glaze which does not take much lustre or transparency. It is generally in the form of plates, many of them huge, all clumsily thick, and frequently of a dingy, ill-vitrified yellow on the back. The lustre on the front is rather pearly than metallic; but prismatic, or even golden, iridescence is met with. These productions are assigned, by Passeri and others, to the fifteenth century; but the arms of Leo X. appear on one in the mediÆval exhibition of 1850 (No. 543, belonging to Mr. S. Isaacs), and on another in the Hotel Cluny, at Paris; while, in the museum of the Commendatore Kestner, Hanoverian minister at Rome, is a third, designed after Marc Antonio. The "fine" majolica attained its greatest perfection at Urbino between 1530 and 1560, and it was prized chiefly for the perfect vitrification and transparency of its varnish, the comparative thinness and whiteness of the texture, the brilliant colouring, and masterly design. Gubbian pottery combined in some degree the qualities of half and fine ware, but excelled all others in metallic and prismatic glaze.

Majolica

MAIOLICA

A plate of Castel Durante ware of about 1524

“The divine and beautiful Lucia”

We shall not encumber our pages with conjectural or vague hints as to the processes of these interesting fabrics. Iridescent lustre obliquely reflected, and a white glaze of dazzling transparency, were the objects respectively aimed at. The former was attained by preparations of lead, copper, silver, and gold; the latter was imparted by dipping the half-baked pottery into a white varnish, over which, while moist, the subject was rapidly painted, correction or retouching being incompatible with the immediate absorption of its colours, which, apart from accidental fusion of tints, and flaws in the furnace, abundantly accounts for the frequent inaccuracy of design. The metallic lustre depended a good deal on lead, the whiteness on a free use of tin.

Those early plates of Pesaro were very rarely signed by their artists; but one in the Hague Museum bears a cipher resembling C.H.O.N., whilst another, quoted by Pungileoni, has a mark composed of G.A.T. interlaced. In 1478, Sixtus IV. wrote his acknowledgments to Costanzo Sforza for a present of "Vasa fictilia, most elegantly wrought, which, for the donor's sake, are prized as if of gold or silver rather than of earthenware."[243] In a similar letter, Lorenzo the Magnificent thanked [Roberto] Malatesta, observing that "they please me entirely by their perfections 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.[244] Passeri gives a curious proclamation by the Lord of Pesaro, in 1486, narrating that, for good favour to the citizens, and considering a fabric of earthen vases to have been of old practised in that city, superior, by general admission, to all others produced in Italy, and that there were now more workshops than ever,—importation of any species thereof from foreign parts was prohibited, on pain of confiscation and fine, half to the informer, oil and water jars only excepted; and further that, within eight days, all foreign vases should be sent out of the state. In 1510, majolica was numbered among the trades of Pesaro, and in 1532, Duke Francesco Maria confirmed the protection for it which we have just cited. I have not met with the patent for "application of gold to Italian faience," quoted by Mr. H. Rogers as granted, in 1509, to Giacomo Lanfranco of Pesaro, by Duke Guidobaldo, who, by the way, was then dead.

It may have been soon after this date that "fine" superseded "half" ware in the potteries of Pesaro, where the art obtained a new stimulus on transference hither of the court by Duke Guidobaldo II. Thereafter it is impossible to distinguish earthenware issuing from these establishments from that of Urbino, their quality being similar, and the artists in many cases identical; but by that Prince's patronage it unquestionably attained its greatest perfection. A petition by certain makers of Pesaro for protection, is given in X. of the Appendix, as illustrating then received principles of trade, as well as of this fabric. It bears date in 1552; and in 1569, the Duke granted to Giacomo Lanfranco, of that city, a patent for twenty-five years, guarded by 500 scudi of penalty, for his inventions in applying gold to vases, and in constructing them of great size (exceeding the capacity of two some), of antique forms, and wrought in relievo. As a further encouragement, he and his father Girolamo were exempted from every impost or tax, and from mill-dues on grinding ten some of grain annually. Proud of the reputation of his native pottery, Guidobaldo was in the habit of presenting services of majolica to foreign princes and personages, who again often sent commissions to be executed in the duchy, bearing their arms. A double service was, according to Vasari, given by him to Charles V.; and another to Philip II., painted by Orazio Fontana from Taddeo Zuccaro's designs; while Passeri mentions a set presented to Fra Andrea of Volterra, each piece inscribed G.V.V.D. [Guid Vbaldonis Urbini Ducis] Munus, F. AndreÆ Volaterano. I found in the Oliveriana MSS. a letter addressed to his brother the Cardinal of Urbino, describing a buffet for Monsignor Farnese, with its inventory, which will be found at XI. of the Appendix. The most important, however, of the ducal commissions was a very numerous set of jars, of many sizes and shapes, for the use of his laboratory [spezeria], a fashion imitated by other dilettanti. Blue, yellow, and green are their prevailing hues; they are always labelled with the name of some drug or mixture, and occasionally have a portrait or other subject. The original set was gifted by Francesco Maria II. to the treasury of Loreto, where about three hundred and eighty of them still serve their original purpose, many duplicates being met with in collections. Specimens will be found engraved by Bartoli, and in Mr. Marryat's beautiful volume; the offers of various crowned heads to replace them by others of gold and silver, are well-known travellers' tales, but in truth they are far from choice specimens.

Like other branches of fine art, majolica-painting showed an early preference for sacred themes; but the primitive plates of Pesaro bear effigies of saints much more frequently than scripture histories, or doctrinal representations. Then came in a fashion for portraits of living or historical persons, including warriors, high-born dames, and classical heroes, inscribed with their names. These paintings are all flat and lifeless, with scarcely an attempt at relief, or graduated tints; the ornaments are rude, inclining to Moorish, and totally different from what is called arabesque. From the della Robbian influence were probably borrowed plates brimming with coloured fruits in relievo, a variety of little interest, but reminding us of similar French productions in a later period. In the sixteenth century, the mania of classicism, elsewhere discussed,[245] much affected majolica; and in its designs, although events of the Old Testament were not abandoned, saintly legends gave place to scenes from Ovid and Virgil. For behoof of the unlettered curious, the incident was shortly, often clumsily, described in blue letters on the back, with a reference to the text. In a few cases (perhaps of amatorii or nuptial gifts), I have found the very finest productions degraded by grossly indecent designs; in more numerous ones groups of nude figures disport themselves in the manner of Giulio Romano. Those in which Raffaelesque arabesques prevail, belong chiefly to the latter portion of Guidobaldo's reign. From that time the fabric decayed rapidly, owing partly to a general decline of Æsthetic taste, partly to the impaired state of that Duke's finances, and the indifference of his successor. Even after historical compositions were neglected, considerable dexterity was displayed in painting trophies, arms, musical instruments, utensils, marine monsters, children, grotesques, birds, trees, flowers, fruits, and landscapes, designs of that class being easily repeated and their inaccuracies passing for studied extravagance. But the drawing got worse, the colouring more feeble, as good artists dropped off, carrying with them their sketches, and superseded by engravings from Sadeler and other Flemings, whose vile taste contributed to lower the standard of better times.[246] Public favour, ever capricious, was successfully wooed by the oriental porcelain, which now found its way among the higher ranks, while the augmented supply of silver encouraged a more extended use of plate. Thus discredited, the manufacture progressively deteriorated, until, in 1722, the stoneware of Urbania was of the most ordinary description, the efforts of Cardinal Legate Stoppani to reinstate a better fabric having totally failed; and thus neglected, the most beautiful productions of its happier time were dispersed, or passed to the meanest uses, from which another whim of fashion, as much as the revival of a better taste, has suddenly rescued them.

Much of what has been said of the fine majolica of Pesaro is applicable to that ascribed to Urbino, most of which appears to have been made in the neighbouring towns of Fermignano, Gaifa, and Castel Durante (now Urbania), the alluvial washings of the Metauro being peculiarly adapted for the purest white glaze. Yet Pungileoni has wormed out of some old notarial protocols the names of Mo. Giovanni di Donnino in 1477, and of Mo. Francesco in 1501, both designed of Gardutia, potters (figuli) at Urbino. He also establishes that coloured figures were executed there in vases in 1521. Passeri denies that those ruby and gold colours for which we shall find Gubbio celebrated, and which certainly were known in the workshops of Pesaro, ever came into use at Urbino,—a conclusion which we shall have occasion to correct. Indeed, this secret of metallic iridescence is said to have been known at Florence, and I have seen a plate of golden lustre bearing the emblem of the woolstaplers' guild [arte della lana]; but if such manufactory existed, I have found no notice of it, and the still flourishing one of Ginori in the Val d'Arno pretends to no such antiquity. I was shown at Florence a tile, on which Annibale Caracci's Galatea was represented with great accuracy of design, but poor and hard in colour, signed "Ferdinand Campani, Siena, 1736." In the latter town there is said to have been a fabric known by the name of Terchi; the analogous one, near Fermo, in the Abruzzi, called Grue, sent forth, I believe, most of those tiles, small plates, or cups and saucers,—ornamented with landscapes of tolerable design, but tinted in sickly yellow or blue, and totally devoid of style,—which abound in Lower Italy.

The prismatic glaze, especially of gold and ruby colour, was unequalled in those plates painted at Gubbio by Maestro Giorgio Andreoli, who appears to have come hither from Pavia with his brothers Salimbeni and Giovanni. His name was there enrolled among the nobility in 1498, but the dates affixed to his plates extend from 1518 to about 1537. He had previously executed several plastic works of the nature of della Robbia's figures, the principal of which was a Madonna del Rosario altar-piece for the Domenican church, which has been enthusiastically described in No. 928 of the London AthenÆum. It was torn down by the French in their wonted course of rapine, and, to the disgrace of the local authorities of Gubbio, lay neglected for several years after the peace, until purchased for the Steidl Institut at Frankfort. The only other of his productions remaining at Gubbio is a life-sized statue of St. Anthony in the same church, quite inferior as regards design and religious feeling to those of the Tuscan sculptors, and which, though coloured, has no metallic lustre. He is said by Passeri to have lived until 1552; and of his family, who long occupied an honourable station in their native city, only a son, Cencio, followed his father's profession. I have seen a plate of this school at Mr. Forrest's, 54 Strand [1850], rudely signed with G; others have R, perhaps il Rovigese, whom I shall presently mention. Mo. Prestino da Gubbio wrought about 1557, but the latest date I have seen with metallic lustre and the Gubbian mark is 1549, on which the iridescence was extremely feeble.

Passeri's assertion, that the Gubbian glaze was borrowed from the half-majolica of Pesaro, may be correct; but we might, perhaps, maintain for it a date as early as 1474, on the authority of a beautiful small plate possessing its peculiarities, and exhibiting Duke Federigo's name and profile in relief, within a coloured border of oak-leaves also in relief, made, possibly, on occasion of his alliance with the della Rovere, by marriage of the Lord Prefect with his daughter in that year. This interesting memorial is No. 2286 of the MediÆval Gallery at the Louvre. In Mr. Marryat's choice cabinet is a half-ware plate, bearing on the back a monogram, which that gentleman supposes of Maestro Giorgio's early period, before he had discovered the mode of obtaining iridescent varnishes. It displays a group of nude figures in pale greyish tints, without any approach to brilliant colouring. His usual signature was dashed off with a metalliferous brush on the back, Mo. Go. da Vgubio, with the date, as at No. 11 of the same facsimiles, from a plate in my possession. Such pieces are rare, and highly prized; their subjects are usually saints, classical groups, or grotesques, vases being very seldom met with. A branch of this fabric is said to have been seated at Nocera; and several, with bright red and blue tracery on a gold metallic ground, dated 1537-8, in the choice cabinet of Signor Serafino Tordelli at Spoleto [1845], are supposed by him of that fabric. Among other exquisite specimens, he has one by Maestro Giorgio, 1529, rivalling the finest miniature, and representing Archimedes measuring a globe, in front of the Communal Palace at Gubbio.

Thus much regarding the various manufactories of majolica connected with Urbino. The forms and purposes to which it was turned were very various. The first plates of Pesaro, chiefly of great size [bacili], were probably for table use, but a variety of them, called amatorii, were either tender souvenirs or marriage gifts. These usually had the lady's portrait, with the complimentary epithet of Bella, as in this example now in my possession; at other times united hands and a transfixed heart, with a motto of affection, moralising, or banter. Several such have been described by Passeri, Marryat, and others, but I shall add a few which have come under my observation. 1. At Florence: Francesca bella a paragon di tutti, "Frances, of beauty comparable to any one." 2. At Rome: Nemo sua sorte contentus erat, "Each has something to grumble about." 3. Sir Thomas B. Hepburn; a lady holding a gigantic pink: Non È sÌ vago el fiore che non imbiacca o casca, "There is no flower so lovely but fades or droops." 4. Rome; a dame of rueful countenance: Sola miseria caret invidia, "Only the miserable escape envy." 5. Pesaro, Massa collection: Per dormire non si acquista, "The indolent get nothing." 6. Florence: Chi bien guida sua barcha sempre emporto, "Who steers well his bark, always makes the harbour." 7. Pesaro:—

8, 9. Florence, and evidently nuptial presents: Per fin che vivo, io sempre t'amerÒ, "While I live, you I love"; the other, a bridegroom and bride exchanging a hearty kiss. Most of these portrait-plates were deep, and are said not to have been delivered empty. Brides received them brimming with jewels; for dancing partners they were filled with fruits and confections; to a lady in childbed was presented a salver containing the sort of chamber service called in French a dÉjeÛner de mariÉ, appropriately decorated with infant legends of gods and heroes; at children's balls, were given tiny plates of sugar-plums, whereon a dancing Cupid sounding his cymbal was often painted. 10. Massa collection,—this has a sadder import: Un bel morire tutta la vita onora, "A beautiful death confers illustration on a lifetime," was, no doubt, in memory of some venerated friend, and might have been used to serve her funeral meats.[248]

But to return to the uses of this pottery. Those who have observed the rich effect of the majolica sparingly displayed in the late MediÆval Exhibition at the Adelphi [1850] may readily admit that, on a buffet lit up by Italian suns, its glowing tints and attractive forms were no mean substitute for the as yet scarce precious metals. Ingenuity was taxed to invent designs and adaptations of an art in which fashion ran riot:—Tiles for floors or panelling; vases of mere ornament; beakers; epergnes; wine-coolers; perfume-sprinklers; fountains, whence there flowed alternately, as if by magic, water or wine of nine varieties at the bidding of the bewildered guests; wine-cups clustered with grapes, through an orifice in which the liquor was sucked, anticipating the American device for discussing sherry-cobbler. Of drug-bottles and pots we have spoken. Sauce-boats, salt-cellars, and inkstands gave rise to endless caprices, in the guise "of beasts, and of fowl and fishes"; and to these may be added figure-groups of saints, grotesque characters and animals, fruits, trees, and pilgrims' bottles.

In the decorations there was generally a consistency, too often lost sight of by modern artificers. Thus, toilet-basins were painted with marine deities, water-nymphs, or aquatic allegories; fruit-stands with fruit and vintages; wine-cups with vine-festoons. Among the oddities may be mentioned tiny tea-cups, into the paste for which was mingled a portion of dust carefully gathered in sweeping out the holy house at Loreto, their sanctity being vouched by the inscription, Con pol. di S.C., "With dust from the Santa Casa." The effigy of the Madonna of Loreto is often affixed, in colour and design on a par with the superstition. A pair of these was shown at the MediÆval Exhibition of 1850, No. 562 of the catalogue, belonging to a Mrs. Palliser.

Having thus considered the various sites and sorts of Urbino majolica, its processes and purposes, we shall mention some of the artists employed upon it. Of these there were two classes, the potter who mixed and manipulated, modelled and moulded clay-clod into an article of convenience or luxury, and the painter whose pencil rendered it an object of the fine arts; latterly, however, these branches were combined, and were carried on by a class of artificers called vasaii or vasari, and boccalini, according as vases or bottles prevailed in their workshops. The little that has come to our knowledge regarding those by whom the early Pesarese and Gubbian ware was fashioned and decorated will be found in a former page. The latter makers of Pesaro and Urbino have more frequently left us the means of identifying their performances in monograms or signatures, usually inscribed in blue characters on the back of plates. But before considering these, we may dispose of the vulgar error which has given Raffaele's name to Italian porcelain. Superficial or romancing writers have often seriously repeated, with purely fictitious additions, Malvasia's petulant sneer, which he was fain quickly to retract, that the great Sanzio was a painter of plates; others have, without better grounds, made him assistant to his father, a potter. There is however nothing connecting him with the ceramic art beyond a loose notice by Don V. Vittorio, in his Osservazioni Sopra Felsina Pittrice (pp. 44, 112-14), of a letter from Raffaele referring to designs supplied by him to the Duchess for majolica. That he did supply such drawings is possible, though discredited by Pungileoni, and, if true, it in no way compromises his status, at a period when high art lent a willing hand to decorate and elevate the adjuncts and appliances of domestic life. This much is certain, that compositions emanating from Sanzio and his school were employed in ornamenting porcelain during the sixteenth century, but they were doubtless obtained from his pupils, or from the engravings of Marc Antonio. Such is the title here introduced from the original in my possession (8½ inches by 7), which is one of the most Raffaelesque I have met with, and which, though not signed, displays the colouring practised by Fra Xanto, the blue and green being deep and well marked, the orange and yellow of the clouds and curtain in metallic iridescence.

In this, as in most instances, the design is somewhat marred by the colours having run when laid on, or during vitrification. The mistake as to Sanzio has been partly occasioned by confusion with Raffaele del Colle, who painted at the Imperiale, and is said by tradition to have contributed sketches for the Pesarese workshops, and also with another Raffaele Ciarla, who seems to have been a potter, about 1530-60. Battles, sieges, and mythological figures resembling the vigorous inventions of Giulio Romano, are not unfrequent; and in the Kestner Museum, I have observed several plates of choice design and Raffaelesque character, especially the Fall and Expulsion of our first Parents, and the Gathering of Manna. But these are satisfactorily accounted for by Passeri's statement, that, with a view to improve a native manufacture which brought to his state both estimation and wealth, Duke Guidobaldo II. took infinite pains in collecting a better class of drawings and prints from celebrated masters, on the dispersion of which, in consequence of their being sought for by collectors, the pictorial excellence of majolica rapidly declined. The first symptom of decay was the substitution of monotonous arabesques, weak in colour and repeated from the type introduced by Raffaele, in place and figure groups and other subjects requiring composition and design.

Premising that we cannot now distinguish exactly between potters and the painters, where these cognate occupations chanced to be divided, and that the same persons occasionally wrought at various places in the duchy, we shall supply a notice of the names we have met with in connection with the workshops of Pesaro, Urbino, and Castel Durante, during the sixteenth century.

Terenzio Terenzi painted vases and plates at Pesaro, one of which he signed "Terenzio fecit, 1550," but his usual mark was T. Another is inscribed, "Questo piatto fu fatto in la Bottega de Mastro Baldassare, Vasaro da Pesaro e fatto per mano de Ferenzio fiolo di Mastro Matteo Boccalaro." He was doubtless the person who, under the surname of Rondolino, became notorious at Rome for his clever pictorial forgeries of the great master's works, although said by Ticozzi to have been born at Pesaro in 1570. The signature "Mastro Gironimo, Vasaro in Pesaro, J.P." occurs from 1542 to 1560, and to him Mr. Marryat ascribes, on what authority I know not, the mark A.O. connected by a cross, which Passeri quotes as of another artist in 1582; the letters I.P. that gentleman reads in Pesaro. This Girolamo Lanfranco was a native of Gabicce, near Pesaro, and died in 1599, leaving sons Girolamo and Ludovico. In his favour, and that of his son, were granted the privileges already referred to, as dated 1552 and 1569.

O F V F

In connection with the workshops of Urbino, we have these names. Giovanni and Francesco di Donnino had a commission for a set of vases for Cardinal Capaccio. Fra Xanto. a. da Rovigo in Urbino signed platters of great size and beautiful design, about 1532-4, some of which show a very fine metallic and prismatic lustre. The mark X, occurring on pieces of that quality, does not, however, always refer to him. A splendid plate in Mr. Marryat's rich collection, commemorative of the taking of Goletta, in Africa, by Charles V., is inscribed In Urbino nella botteg di Francesco de Silvano, X. MDXXXXI.; and a Judith of great beauty, in the Tordelli cabinet, signed F.X. 1535, is, no doubt of that master. Contemporary and very analogous are plates with an iridescence rivalling that of Maestro Giorgio, signed Mastro Rovigo di Urbino, or Da Rovigiese: of this artist, probably the countryman of Xanto, we know nothing, but he may be the same who signs Gubbian plates with R. Equally little can we say as to Giulio of Urbino, who is mentioned as working for the Duke of Ferrara, about 1530; or of Cesare da Faenza, then employed in the shop of Guido Merlini, of Urbino. Much more noted are the Fontana family, originally of Castel Durante. From thence Guido, son of NicolÒ, emigrated to the capital, where his son Orazio painted many of the finest productions of the reign of Guidobaldo II., including the best vases of his laboratory, his usual mark being this, meaning Orazio Fontana Urbinate fece. Among the treasures and trash of Strawberry Hill was a very large vase, with serpent handles, and designs ascribed to Giulio Romano, inscribed Fate in botega di Orazio Fontana.[249] A plate described by Passeri, has the story of Horatius Cocles, with the motto Orazio solo contra Toscana tutta, fatto in Pesaro 1541, which appears to be a jeu de mots intended by Fontana as a challenge to the rival fabrics of Tuscany.[250] For him has been claimed the invention of Gubbian glaze; while others say his discovery was a mode of preventing the mixture of colours during vitrification. He died in 1571, his labours having been shared by a brother Camillo, who carried the art to Ferrara, and a nephew Flaminio, who settled in Florence.

Among the pupils of Orazio was Raffaele Ciarla, whose name we have noticed as confused with that of Raffaele Sanzio, and who painted a buffet of porcelain, after designs by Taddeo Zuccaro, which his sovereign presented to Philip II. of Spain. He wrought between 1530 and 1560. Gianbattista Franco, a Venetian painter of whom we have lately spoken, was invited by Duke Guidobaldo II., about 1540, to supply designs for majolica, in consequence of his reputation for clever drawings in the dangerous style of Michael Angelo. The loss of his cupola for the cathedral at Urbino is not to be regretted; but in a humbler sphere he acquitted himself better, and some of the vases in the laboratory bear his signature, B.F.V.F., Battista Franco Urbinas fecit. Among the latest artists was Alfonso Patanazzi, who was born at Urbino of a noble family, and died in 1694; but his productions (signed in full, or with his initials) have no artistic merit whatever.

It remains to mention those who wrought chiefly at Castel Durante, or, as it was named after the Devolution to the Holy See, Urbania. The Chevalier Cipriano Picolpasso, from being a professor of the healing art, took to pottery about 1550, and left a MS. account of some of the secrets of that fabric and of its glazes, which was used by Passeri for his work. Mr. Marryat considers that he was peculiarly successful in painting trophies. Guido di Savino is said to have carried the art from Castel Durante to Antwerp; and he or Guido Fontana may be author of a plate, in the Soane Museum, of the Fates, signed In botega di Mo. Guido Durantino in Urbino. To either of them I am disposed to assign the monogram, No. 12, of our 18th plate of facsimiles, which Mr. Marryat reads as Castel Durante, but which seems to me a G.D., for Guido Durantino. Alessandro Gatti, of that place, had three brothers, Giovanni, Tiseo, and Luzio, whom Picolpasso mentions as having emigrated to Corfu, and there established the same fabric. Cardinal Stoppani, Legate of Pesaro, in last century, made some ineffectual attempts to restore the manufacture at Urbania, and the only pottery now produced in the duchy is of the most ordinary white stoneware. It would be interesting to know the scale of remuneration for mere artistic varieties of majolica, but the prices given by Passeri, from Picolpasso's MS., refer only to the more ordinary and mechanical designs, such as grotesques with monsters, arabesques, trophies with armour, fruit, flowers, and foliage; of these the first was the most costly, the last the cheapest, varying from two Roman scudi to about two and a half pauls per hundred. Supposing money in 1560 to have been six times its present value in Italy, these sums may be considered equal to fifty shillings and six shillings respectively.[251]

In Italy, the collection of majolica made by the Chevalier Massa, at Pesaro, is specially worthy of notice, and contains specimens of most varieties made in the duchy. It was chiefly got together between 1825 and 1835 when these were still abundant and little sought after; but the district was nearly cleared of them about twelve years since, by an agent of Parisian dealers. The Chevalier, who was in extreme old age in 1845, had bequeathed his majolica—consisting of about five hundred pieces, with a few indifferent pictures—to his native town, unless he could, during life, sell the whole for about 1000l., destined by him to charitable purposes. Another numerous collection is that of Signor Mavorelli, at La Fratta, near Perugia. The small but choice cabinet of Signor Serafino Tordelli, at Spoleto, has already been mentioned. Specimens may still be picked up in Rome, Florence, Paris, and London; but perhaps the most specimens are in the hands of English amateurs.