Maiolica

by C. Drury E. Fortnum

After the fabrique of Malaga that of Majorca is thought to be the most ancient, and the extension of its manufactures by commerce is indirectly proved by the adoption of the term “Majolica” by the potters of Italy for such of their wares as were decorated with the metallic lustre. Scaliger, writing in the first half of the sixteenth century, speaks highly of the wares of the

Balearic islands: but not being an “expert” in ceramic productions, after praising the porcelain recently brought from China, admires what he calls their imitations made at Majorca. “We call them (he says) ‘majolica,’ changing one letter in the name of the island where we are assured that the most beautiful are made:” an interesting testimony to the importation of these wares into Italy and the knowledge of their origin, as also to the derivation of the term applied to the home manufacture of Pesaro and Gubbio.

Although presumably of much earlier date no record of this pottery occurs till that of Giovanni di Bernardi da Uzzano, the son of a rich Pisan merchant, who in 1442 wrote a treaty on commerce and navigation, published by Paquini, in which he speaks of the manufactures of Majorca and Minorca, particularly mentioning faience which “had then a very large sale in Italy.” We have evidence that the principal seat of the manufacture was at Ynca, in the interior of the island; and in confirmation of this discovery some plates have been observed by M. Davillier in collections on which the arms of that island are represented. One is in the hôtel Cluny, and is probably of the fifteenth century. It is Moresque in style with illegible inscriptions in an odd mixture of the Arabic and Gothic characters; the lustre of a red colour and the arms in the centre. These arms are, paly gules and or, on a fess argent a dog in the act of bounding, sable.

There would seem also to have been a fabrique at Iviça for Vargas, in his description of the Balearic islands, says, “It is much to be regretted that Iviça has ceased to make her famous vases of faience, destined for exportation as well as for local consumption.” But of their precise nature he gives us no information and we have no knowledge.

The kingdom of Valencia in the time of the Romans was noted for its works in pottery; those produced at Saguntum, the present Murviedro, having a great reputation at that period according to Pliny, who mentions the jasper red pottery of Saguntum where 1,200 workmen were employed.

To these, after the occupation of the Goths, succeeded the Arab workmen who accompanied the Mussulman conquest in 711. Again, when the Moors were in 1239 subjected to Christian domination the potters’ art was considered of sufficient importance to claim a special charter from the king, who granted it to the Saracens of Xativa, a small town now called San-Felipe. This charter provides that every master potter making vases, domestic vessels, tiles, “rajolas” (an Arabic name for wall-tiles, synonymous with “azulejos”), should pay a “besant” annually and freely pursue his calling.

Sir Wm. Drake in his notes on Venetian ceramics cites an ordinance of the Venetian senate in 1455, declaring that no earthenware works of any kind should be introduced into the dominions of the Signory except crucibles (“correzzoli”) and Majolica of Valencia; an important fact proving the value that was attached to the Spanish lustre wares in Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. The woodcut p. [81] represents a fine plateau at South Kensington, golden lustred; of about the year 1500.

Marineo Siculo, writing in 1517, devotes a chapter to the utensils and other objects of faience made in Spain, in which he states that “the most esteemed are those of Valencia, which are so well worked and so well gilded;” and Capmany records a decree of the municipal council of Barcelona in 1528 relative to the exportation of faience to Sicily and elsewhere, in which “la loza de Valencia” is named. Again Barreyros a Portuguese, in his “Chorographia,” praising the pottery of Barcelona says that it is “even superior” to that of Valencia. The expulsion of the Moors in 1610 by Philip III. gave the fatal blow to this industry, as we learn from contemporary authors that many of the banished artizans were potters (“olleros”).

From time immemorial St. John the evangelist has been particularly venerated at Valencia, and in the grand processions of Corpus Christi the emblematic eagle is carried, holding in his beak a banderole on which is inscribed the first sentence of his gospel: “In principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum.” On some pieces of Hispano-moresque ware this sentence is inscribed, and the eagle sometimes covers the front, sometimes the back. There is therefore reason to infer that these were made in one of the fabriques of Valencia, and if so their style would be to a considerable extent typical of the Valencian pottery. The decoration was probably inspired by the wares of Malaga, and it is likely that many of the pieces of the fifteenth century, bearing inscriptions in Gothic characters with animals, &c. in blue, may be of this fabrique.