Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/648

624 POTTERY [ITALIAN the shape of animals or knights on horseback. The most graceful in shape were pilgrim -bottles, flattened globes, very like one of the forms common in Egyptian and Assyrian pottery. The common domestic pottery of the Mid dle Ages was made and used in enormous quantities. Though it was wonderfully cheap, yet the ease with which it was broken made it a serious and often-recurring item in the household expenses of rich or royal personages. The list of expenses of a feast on the anniversary of Queen Eleanor s death (wife of Edward I.) contains this item, "pro M le et D discis, tot platellis, tot salseriis, et CCCC chiphis xliis," that is, 42s. for 1500 dishes, 1500 plates, 1 500 saucers, and 400 cups. The 42s. are perhaps equal to 25 of modern money, a small sum for 4900 pieces of pottery. SECTION X. MEDIEVAL AND MODERN ITALIAN. Sgraffi- Sgraffiato Ware was made by covering a vessel of red ato ware, clay with a coating of white slip made of some natural white earth like pipeclay. This was done by dipping or by pouring the fluid slip over the red vessel. When the white coating was dry the design was formed by cutting it away so as to expose the red body underneath. In this way bowls, dishes, ewers, and other vessels were decorated with human figures, or with graceful scroll -patterns of foliage and flowers. The patterns were then picked out with bright colours, yellow, blue, and green ; and finally the whole was glazed with a very fusible lead glaze (see fig. 53). This is probably a very early method for the FIG. 53. Italian sgraffiato plate, 16th century. (South Kensington Museum.) decoration of pottery in various parts of Italy ; but only few existing specimens are older than the second half of the 15th century. Some of the earlier specimens have very graceful designs, of almost Gothic style, executed with great spirit, and very decorative in effect. Sgraffiato ware continued to be made during the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in the neighbourhood of Pa via ; it was, however, but little esteemed owing to the greater I>opularity of painted majolica. Rude imitations of it were made in Germany and France. Majolica. Italian Majolica. 1 The history of this ware in its early stages of development is almost unknown. According to popular tradition, it was first copied from certain plates brought by the Pisans from the island of Majolica (or Majorca) in the 12th century. This is extremely improb- able ; the fabrication and use of a white tin enamel were 1 In this article the word "majolica " is used in its modern sense to include non-lustred pottery. known to Italian potters long before they found out the secret of lustre colours, a discovery not made in Italy till the 15th century. We know from various sources that lustred pottery from the Balearic Islands was largely im ported into Italy during the 15th century (see above), and it is quite possible that the sight of the brilliant lustre on the imported Moorish ware set the potters of Italy to work, and led them to find out, either by experiments or from some traveller who had visited the Balearic kilns, how to compose and fire the metallic salts required to produce the lustre ; but this occurred long after the Pisan victory at Majorca. It was to the lustred ware only that the Italians gave the name of "majolica," though now it is commonly applied to all the Italian enamelled pottery of the 15th and 16th centuries. It was the lustre only that was a fresh discovery in the 1 5th century ; enamelled ware had been made by Italian potters many years before. This is an important point, and it should be noted that the accounts given by Vasari and several other old Italian writers on the subject are quite misleading. "Mezza- majolica " is a word of rather uncertain meaning which occurs in early writers on Italian pottery. It has been used to mean pottery covered not with a tin enamel but with a white slip, made of a white clay like that found at Vicenza ; and in many museums the earlier and ruder sorts of majolica have been arranged under this name. The fact, however, seems to be that even the rudest and earliest specimens of majolica in the various museums of Europe are covered with a true tin enamel. Curious specimens of pottery, covered with a rude enamel made of the white kaolinic " terra di Vicenza " mixed with an alkaline silicate, have recently been found in tombs of the 11 th and 12th centuries in various parts of Italy. These earliest attempts at what we now call majolica are coarsely decorated in green, yellow, and blue, on a white ground, with patterns of semi-Oriental style. The pigments used appear in some cases to be simply coloured glass reduced to powder, a kind of smalto. This style of pottery is probably the mezza-majolica of Vasari. It is evidently the first step towards the production of the true majolica, in which the kaolinic clay of Vicenza is replaced by a tin enamel. This discovery is of great importance as regards the early history of Italian pottery. The few pieces yet known are mostly preserved in the office of public instruc tion in Rome, and are not yet exhibited in any museum. Very few early examples of developed Italian majolica are now known. One of the most important is a small jug, 5 inches high, in the Sevres Museum, which is made of reddish clay covered with a white tin enamel, and painted with a shield and simple ornaments in manganese purple and bright green (oxide of copper). It is supposed to have been made at Rimini, and dates from the 13th or 14th century (see fig. 54). It was not, however, till the second half of the 1 5th century that Italian majolica began to be largely produced. Owing to the great difficulty of determining the special towns where the earlier varie ties were made, it will be convenient to treat this ware according to style and date rather than under the heads of the different potteries. During the earlier and more im portant period the production of majolica M was confined to a very small part of Italy. i )a bly the earliest Bologna on the north, Perugia on the south, known specimen Siena on the west, and the Adriatic on the ? f Italian majol- east roughly indicate the limits within ^J^ 1 * which the chief majolica-producing towns were situated ; these were Forli, Faenza, Rimini, Cafag- giolo, Pesaro, Urbino, Castel Durante, Gubbio, Perugia, and

Siena. Towards the middle of the 16th century distant