Borgo San-Sepolcro, Diruta, &c.

There is an example of the Borgo San-Sepolcro ware at South Kensington, a lamp, formed of faience of a bluish white shade, painted with garlands of flowers, &c. in colour, on which is written under the foot, “Citta Borgo S. Sepolcro a 6 Febraio 1771. Mart. Roletus fecit.”

At San Quirico cardinal Chigi established a work about 1714, inspired with the idea of reviving the art of painting on faience. It was directed by Piezzentili, a painter who had given some study to the celebrated vases by Orazio Fontana. On his death Bartolomeo Terchi, Feschi, or Ferchi, seems to have worked at or directed the establishment, for in the Louvre is a plaque representing Moses striking the rock, and signed “Bar Terchi Romano in S. Quirico.” We shall meet with this wandering artist also at Bassano. With other members of his family he seems to have worked at various potteries throughout Italy, and examples occur on which his or their signatures appear, accompanied only by the patronymic “Romano,” and which are of course difficult to assign to any one of the fabriques at which we know them to have worked.

Ferdinando Maria Campani before going to Siena worked also at this fabrique; its productions were not sold, but given as presents by the cardinal.

We have very little positive information in respect to the fabrique of Diruta in the Papal States. Alluded to by Passeri as a pottery near Foligno where pieces were produced remarkable for the whiteness of the paste, we are led to the supposition that he may have confounded the wares produced at other neighbouring localities with those made at Diruta: and he does not inform us whether it produced lustred wares or only those of polychrome decoration. A few years since certain plates came under the notice of collectors inscribed “In Deruta,” the subjects painted in blue outline, and lustred with a brassy golden colour. Doubt and uncertainty had long existed as to the spot where the large “bacili” and other pieces of a well-known and abundant ware, lustred with a golden pigment of peculiarly pearly effect in certain lights, had been produced, and the discovery of these signed examples, having a somewhat similar metallic enrichment, caused connoisseurs to grasp at the, perhaps hasty, conclusion, that to Diruta must be assigned those wares of earlier date and hitherto unknown locality, and that Diruta must have possessed a pottery of very early time and important character. But after an examination and comparison of signed specimens, and others which are with reasonable probability considered to be of this fabrique, we are compelled to conclude that the productions of Diruta were generally inferior to, and in many instances copied or derived from, those of the Gubbio or earlier Pesaro types.

Castel di Diruta or Deruta is a “borgo” or dependency of Perugia, on the road from that city to Orvieto by Todi. It is but a few miles from Perugia, within an easy day’s journey of Gubbio, and although it may be reasonable to presume that potteries existed there from an early period, we think it more probable that they derived the use of the lustre pigments from Gubbio.

It is extremely difficult in many instances to decide with any degree of certainty as to whether some individual early specimens of the lustred ware alluded to above, be of Pesaro, of Gubbio, or of Diruta workmanship. We have little hesitation in assigning the dish in the next woodcut to Diruta; the dance of Cupids is after Marc Antonio. The similarity of the process necessary to such productions entails a corresponding similarity of result, but we notice a somewhat coarser grounding, a golden reflet of a brassy character, a ruby, when it (rarely) occurs, of pale dull quality,

looser outlines of a colder and heavier blue, and in the pieces not lustred the same tones of colour, a dark blue approaching to that of Caffaggiolo in depth but wanting its brilliancy, the use of a bright yellow to heighten the figures in grotesques, &c. in imitation of the golden lustre, and a thin green. The drawing is generally of an inferior stamp, and a certain tout ensemble pervades the pieces difficult to define but which more or less prevails.

The discovery within the last few years of a fine work, signed with the artist’s monogram, the date 1527, and the place at which

it was painted, is all we know of the existence of a botega at Fabriano. There can be little doubt that many such local and individual furnaces existed during the sixteenth century under the direction of ceramic artists, in many instances an emigrant from one of the more important centres, and encouraged to set up for himself at another city by the patronage of the leading families. This plate, which has for subject the “Madonna della Scala” after Marc Antonio’s engraving from Raffaelle, is cleverly painted, and on the reverse is the inscription of which we have given a facsimile. It was exhibited by M. Spitzer, of Paris, at the “Exposition Universelle,” was purchased from him by signor Alffº. Castellani, and subsequently sold at Christie’s for £114. Another example by the same hand, and with the same subject but without signature, was sold at the same sale.

In the museum of Economic geology is a plate of the same botega, having for subject the rape of Proserpine surrounding a cupid centre. It is painted in grisaille, the sky warmed with touches of yellow, and ably executed. This fabrique not being then known it was ascribed to Urbino, but the monogram on the reverse, exactly corresponding with that on the signed Fabriano piece, proves it to be of the same origin. We also give this mark in fac-simile.

The pottery of Viterbo is not recorded by any writer, but an inferior work at South Kensington is inscribed with the name of the city and with that of Diomeo, who was perhaps the painter of the piece in 1544. It is a rough piece, rudely coloured and ill-drawn, but interesting from the name of place and the date. We give an engraving of a portion of the border, the hand of a youth holding a scroll. Two other examples are with some doubt referred to the same locality.

Loreto is named in connexion with the set of Spezieria vases, of the fabrique of Orazio Fontana, which were presented to the shrine of our Lady of Loreto by the last duke of Urbino, on his abdication in favour of the Holy See. It was the habit to collect the dust gathered from the walls of the Santa Casa and the dress of the Virgin, from which, mixed in small quantities with the potter’s clay, cups or bowls were formed and painted with figures of the Virgin and Child, generally on a yellow ground. These cups were inscribed outside CON · POL · DI · S · CASA (with the dust of the Holy House). Occasionally, but less frequently, some of the holy water from the shrine was sprinkled on the dust, thereby to impart a still greater sanctity. A cup so made is in the writer’s collection, and is inscribed CON · POL · ET · AQVA · DI · S · CASA (with dust and water of the Holy House). These cups were probably presented as marks of favour to pilgrims who had visited and probably enriched the sanctuary. Signor Raffaelli believes that they were made at Castel Durante, for the establishment at Loreto. The seal of the convent was affixed to them in red wax.

Hitherto we have no published record of the former existence of a manufactory of artistic enamelled pottery at Rome, that great centre to which by her affluence and power at various periods of history artists and objects of art have been drawn from their native countries. We have no assurance that purely native Roman art ever attained to any very high degree of excellence. The Etruscans and the Greeks in Pagan times, the Byzantine school of the middle ages, and at the period of the renaissance the great Tuscan and Venetian artists worked in Rome upon those monuments of genius of which she is so justly proud; but they are possessions rather than native productions; and it would appear that even in so comparatively small a branch of artistic manufacture she was indebted to a native of Castel Durante for the establishment of a fabrique of maiolica. Had there been pre-existing furnaces, producing wares of artistic merit, it would hardly have been worth while for Mº Diomede on the fall of the dukedom of Urbino to bring his art to Rome. There is no notice of any pieces of this ware inscribed as having been made at Rome until the year 1600, when we find on two oviform pharmacy vases of good outline, having each a pair of double serpent handles and a domed cover surmounted by a knob, the following inscriptions written on oval labels. On one vase “Fatto in botega de M. Diomede Durante in Roma,” and on the other, of which we give a woodcut, “Fatto in Roma da Gio. Pavlo Savino M.D.C.” These vases are decorated on one side with grotesques ably sketched in yellow, greyish blue, and orange colours on a white enamel ground of considerable purity; on the other, a leafage diaper in the same tone of blue covers the like ground. On one only, immediately above the inscribed oval, the head of a buffalo is painted in dark blue, approaching to black, and may refer to the locality of the botega, possibly in the vicinity

of the Via or Palazzo del Bufalo. These vases were for many years in the possession of the Gaetani family, and were purchased by the writer during his sojourn at Rome in the early part of 1870. The style of execution is in the manner of the Urbino grotesque decoration of the Fontana fabrique, but has not that delicacy, combined with artistic freedom and naÏvetÉ, so remarkable in the productions attributed to Camillo Fontana and other contemporary artists working some fifty years before; in certain respects they have affinity to the work of M. Gironimo of Urbino. Numerous examples of similar general character, but later in date and of inferior execution, are frequently to be met with in the shops at Rome and prove the production to have been abundant; specimens are in the South Kensington museum.

A manufacture of white glazed earthenware, as also of “biscuit” porcelain, was introduced by the famous engraver Giovanni Volpato, of Venice, in the year 1790. He expended a large sum of money in making experiments and in the founding of the works, as also in procuring numerous models which were executed with the greatest care from the antique, and from other objects in museums, &c. as also from the works of Canova. At one time no less than twenty experienced artists were employed in modelling the “biscuit” porcelain to supply the great demand. Large furnaces were constructed, but the great expense and risk in the production of pieces for table use necessitated their sale at a price which could not compete with the French wares, although superior in the qualities of strength and resistance. The establishment continued until about 1832, when the works ceased.

The figures and groups in “biscuit” porcelain, of pure white and stone colour (variations arising from the different degrees of heat to which they were exposed in the oven) were undoubtedly the more important artistic productions of the Roman fabrique; but glazed pottery, very similar in character to that of Leeds or the “Queen’s ware” of the Wedgwoods and known as “terraglia verniciata,” was also made, and in this material statuettes, figures of animals, candelabra, vases, and portrait busts were modelled. There can be little doubt that the finer examples were produced at the period when the elder Volpato perfected the establishment, and when his critical and artistic eye directed his modellers, and many of the figures and groups are admirable for their grace and careful execution. Few bear any mark, but occasionally pieces, both of the “biscuit” and glazed ware, bear the name G · Volpata · Roma · impressed in the clay.

A manufacture of coarse glazed pottery rudely ornamented with figures, flowers, fruit, &c. in colour, still exists in the Trastevere, which supplies the contadini and the humbler classes of the city with pots and pans of various form and startling decoration.