The History of Majolica
The name is thought to come from the medieval Italian word for Majorca, an island on the route for ships bringing Hispano-Moresque wares from Valencia to Italy. Moorish potters from Majorca are reputed to have worked in Sicily and it has been suggested that their wares reached the Italian mainland from Caltagirone. An alternative explanation of the name is that it comes from the Spanish term obra de Malaga, denoting “[imported] wares from Malaga”. or obra de mélequa, the Spanish name for luster.[
Refined production of tin-glazed earthenwares made for more than local needs was concentrated in central Italy from the later thirteenth century, especially in the contada of Florence. The medium was also adopted by the Della Robbia family of Florentine sculptors. The city itself declined in importance in the second half of the fifteenth century, perhaps because of local deforestation, while the production scattered among small communes and, after mid-fifteenth century, at Faenza. Significantly, in a contract of 1490 twenty-three master-potters of Montelupo agreed to sell the year's production to Francesco Antinori of Florence; Montelupo provided the experienced potters who were set up in 1495 at the Villa Medicea di Cafaggiolo by its Medici owners. Florentine wares spurred characteristic productions in the fifteenth century at Arezzo and Siena.
In the fifteenth century Italian maiolica reached an astonishing degree of perfection. In Romagna, Faenza, which gave its name to faience, produced fine maiolica from the early fifteenth century; it was the only fair-sized city in which the ceramic industry became a major economic component. Bologna produced lead-glazed wares for export. Orvieto and Deruta both produced maioliche in the fifteenth century. In the sixteenth century, maiolica production was established at Castel Durante, Urbino, Gubbio and Pesaro.
Some maiolica was produced as far north as Padua, Venice and Turin and as far south as Palermo and Caltagirone in Sicily and Laterza in Apulia. In the seventeenth century Savona began to be a prominent place of manufacture. The variety of styles that arose in the sixteenth century all but defies classification. Italian cities encouraged the start of a new pottery industry by offering tax relief, citizenship, monopoly rights and protection from outside imports.
An important mid-sixteenth century document for the techniques of maiolica painting is the treatise of Cipriano Piccolpasso, not a professional potter himself. Individual sixteenth-century masters like Nicola da Urbino, Francesco Xanto Avelli, Guido Durantino and Orazio Fontana of Urbino, Mastro Giorgio of Gubbio and Maestro Domenigo of Venice all deserve individual treatment. Gubbio lustre used colours such as greenish yellow, strawberry pink and a ruby red. The tradition of maiolica died away in the eighteenth century, under competition from inexpensive porcelains and white earthenware.
Deruta is a hill town on the Tiber River, near Perugia, Italy. Deruta is know for earthenware better known as Majolica which was first produced during the 15th century. A visit to Deruta today will take you back in time.Located about 19 kilometers (12 miles) south of Perugia in the region of Umbria, Deruta would be just another hill town boasting a handful of master artworks were it not for its reputation as ceramics central.
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