In the collection of baron Alphonse de Rothschild, of Paris, is a large and well formed vase with serpent handles, under which the name PISA is inscribed on tablets. It is much in the manner of the later Urbino wares, having grotesques on a white ground, but more nearly approaching those examples at South Kensington (nos. 321 and 323) having the arms of the Medici, which we have ascribed in the large catalogue to Caffaggiolo or Florence. It has been suggested that this vase may be of the Pesaro fabrique, and that the word upon it was merely a variation in spelling the first half of the name Pisaro; but we see no reason for accepting such an explanation or that Pisa should be denied the small honour of having produced this example, the only one inscribed with her name.
There can be very little doubt that a manufactory of glazed earthenware existed at Pesaro or in its immediate outskirts from a very early period, and that it probably succeeded to the works established there in Roman times, the remains of which have occasionally been brought to light; but with the exception of the recorded names of certain potters, occurring in deeds and records which are preserved among the public archives of the city, we are uninformed, and unable to recognize the produce of these potteries or to know their characteristics.
Anterior to 1540 we have no signed and dated example, and should therefore be reduced to the position of entire ignorance as to their previous productions but for the work of the indefatigable archæologist Giambattista Passeri. Born in 1694 at Farnese in the Campagna di Roma (where his father, of a patrician family of Pesaro, practised as a physician) and educated at Rome, he subsequently settled in his parental city and published the “Istoria delle pitture in Maiolica fatte in Pesaro e in luoghi circonvicini,” in 1758. To him we are indebted for the notice of the potters above alluded to, and in his work he gives us an account of the mode pursued in the manufacture, much of which however he appears to have derived from the earlier manuscript of Piccolpasso. He tells us that the large early bacili enriched with a madreperla lustre were the produce of Pesaro; and in corroboration states that many of them are painted with the coats of arms and portraits of the members of noble Pesarese families, instancing one with the arms of the “Bergnana” family then preserved in the Casa Olivieri. It has been objected that Passeri was influenced by local partiality in favour of the native city of his family, and that he ascribed to her furnaces what may in equal likelihood have been produced at Gubbio or Diruta; and the discovery of a few pieces of lustred ware, marked as the produce of the latter Castello in the middle of the 16th century, was hailed by several critics as conclusive evidence against his assertion.
It appears to the writer that such evidence is equally unsatisfactory, inasmuch as the works in question were produced some century and a half anterior to the earliest dated piece of Diruta ware. Passeri wrote in the middle of the last century, when the art was no longer in existence and its specimens only preserved in the cabinets of the curious; but he was a man of erudition and research and probably had means of obtaining information with which we are unacquainted; we think therefore that as his statements have not yet been met by proofs of their incorrectness, or by counter-statements of greater weight, we are bound to accept them until additional light be thrown upon the subject. He tells us that remains of antique furnaces and ruins of a vase shop of classic times, with fragments of red and black wares and lamps marked with the letter G, were found in the locality known as the “Gabbice” where the Lanfranchi works were afterwards established in the 16th century, and where the earth is of fine quality. He traces the use of this earth in the time of the Goths, and states that it again revived under the government of the Malatesta; and that soon afterwards a mode of adorning churches was adopted by the insertion of discs of earthenware at first simply glazed with the oxide of lead, but that coloured ones were subsequently used.
The wares were made by covering the crude baked clay with a slip or engobe of white earth, the “terra di San Giovanni” from Siena, or with that of Verona, and glazing it with “marzacotto,” a mixture of oxide of lead, sand and potash. The colours, used were yellow, green, manganese black, and cobalt blue (from the “zaffara” of the Levant). During the government of the Sforza the manufacture greatly developed and was protected, for on 1st April 1486 a decree was made prohibiting the introduction of earthenwares for sale from other parts, except the jars for oil and water. This was confirmed in 1508. In 1510 a document enumerates “Maiolica” as one of the trades of Pesaro, naming also “figoli,” “vasai,” and “boccalari;” and we must bear in mind that there is good reason for believing that at that period “Maiolica” was a name technically understood as applying only to the lustred wares.
Passeri states that about 1450 the “invetriatura” or glazing had already begun to perfect itself under the Sforza, when those early pieces were produced decorated with “arabesque” borders encircling coats of arms, portraits, and ideal heads outlined with manganese and coloured with the “madreperla” lustre, leaving the flesh white. He ascribes the improvement in the manufacture by the use of the stanniferous glaze to the discovery of the Della Robbia, and adds that, although the art of making it was known
earlier at Florence, the fine ware was only introduced at Pesaro about 1500: near which period the beautiful portrait dish which we engrave (no. 4078 at Kensington) was probably made. Here he again says that the lustred ware derived its name from the pottery of Maiolica, and that the earlier and coarser varieties were known as “Mezza-maiolica.” Guid’ Ubaldo II. greatly encouraged the art, and in 1552 granted to Bernardin Gagliardino, Girolamo Lanfranchi, Ranaldo and others an edict prohibiting the importation of other wares for sale, thus confirming the former acts, which would appear to have fallen into neglect: and in the year 1562, on the 1st of June, he granted another, confirming to Giacomo Lanfranco a protection of his art or patent for applying real gold to his wares.
Passeri then (after some further historical details) describes examples of the glazed and enamelled pottery of Pesaro which he had seen, and the earliest he refers to are floorings of tiles existing in his time, upon one of which, brought to him by a workman, was inscribed
adi 4 de Genar
o. in Pesaro.