the place from which it was derived. Accordingly we find that the coarser lead glazed lustred ware was known as “mezza-maiolica,” while that more nearly resembling its original, by the use of the tin enamel, was known as “maiolica.” That the Moorish potters of Majorca conveyed this knowledge, and that the Italians named their ware after that of the island, would seem a reasonable conclusion. M. Jacquemart, however, thinks it equally probable that although the Majorcan wares were well known in Italy, this art may really have been communicated by Persian potters, or their pupils, coming to the eastern ports of Italy; and that the style of decoration on the early Italian lustred wares is more Persian than Moresque. This would also in some measure explain why the lustrous colours were used at some potteries anterior to the adoption of the stanniferous enamel. The woodcut represents a bowl at South Kensington, no. 503, possibly of this manufacture, and of great rarity. In date it is somewhat late; about 1490.
The general term “Maiolica,” also spelt “Majolica,” has long been and is still erroneously applied to all varieties of glazed earthenware of Italian origin. We have seen that it was not so originally but that the term was restricted to the lustred wares, which resemble in that respect those of the island from which they had long been imported into Italy. It is a curious fact, proving their estimation in that country, that nearly all the specimens of Hispano-moresque pottery which adorn our cabinets and enrich our museums have been procured in Italy; comparatively few pieces having been found in Spain.
Scaliger states in reference to the Italian pottery as comparable with the porcelain of China, that the former derived its name from Majorca, of which the wares are most excellent. Fabio Ferrari also, in his work upon the origin of the Italian language, states his belief “that the use of majolica, as well as the name, came from Majorca, which the ancient Tuscan writers called Maiolica.” Thus Dante writes:—“Tra l’isola di Cipri e Maiolica;” showing the then mode of spelling the name of the island, and it would seem but natural to distinguish an imitation of its produce as “à la Maiolica.”
The “mezza-maiolica” was the coarser ware, formed of potter’s earth, covered with a white “slip” upon which the subject was painted; then glazed with the common “marza-cotto” or lead glaze, over which the lustre pigments were applied. The “maiolica,” on the other hand, was the tin enamelled ware similarly lustred. As before stated, these terms were originally used with reference only to the lustred wares, but towards the middle of the sixteenth century they seem to have been generally applied to the glazed earthenware of Italy. We think with M. Jacquemart, M. Darcel, Mr. J. C. Robinson, and others, that the word maiolica should be again restricted to the lustred wares, although in Italy and elsewhere it is habitually used to designate all the numerous varieties of glazed earthenware, with the exception of the more common “terraglia” and in distinction from porcelain.
The Germans ascribe the discovery of the tin enamel glazing to a potter of Schelestadt, in Alsace, whose name is unknown but who died in the year 1283; and in the convent of St. Paul at Leipzic is a frieze of large glazed tiles, with heads in relief, the date of which is stated to be 1207. The potters’ art is said to have developed itself in that country at an earlier period than in Italy; rilievo architectural decorations, monuments with figures in high relief, and other works of great artistic merit having been executed in 1230 at Breslau, where there is a monument to Henry IV. of Silesia who died in 1290, an important work in this material. Later, at Nuremberg, the elder Veit Hirschvögel was born in 1441, and by him the use of the tin glaze was known. Specimens ascribed to his hand and dating from 1470 are preserved in museums. At Strehla a pulpit of glazed terra-cotta is of the date 1565, and at Saltzburg is the wonderful chimney-piece of the fifteenth century, still in its original position in the Schloss. At that time, also, Hans Kraut, of Villengen in Swabia, produced good works, but it is probable that many of these larger examples are covered with an admirably manipulated green or brown glaze which is produced without the admixture of tin.
In Italy history has always awarded the honour of its discovery to Luca della Robbia, whose first great work was executed in 1438; and however recent observation may lead to the assumption that its use was known in the Italian potteries before his time, there can be no doubt that his was not merely an application of a well-known process to a new purpose, but that he really did invent an enamel of peculiar whiteness and excellence, better adapted to his purpose and of somewhat different composition from that in use at any of the potteries of his time.
CHAPTER III.
We have already seen that in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries native wares were produced in various places, some of which still exist in the towers and façades of churches, and of a palace at Bologna. These are lead glazed, rudely painted or with single colours, and in some instances “sgraffiato” proving that the use of a white “slip,” or “engobe” was known in Italy at that period, as affirmed by Passeri, who further asserts that in 1300 the art assumed a more decorative character, under the then lords of Pesaro, the Malatestas. Having thus attained an even opaque white surface the development of its artistic decoration steadily advanced. The colours used were yellow, green, blue, and black, to which we may add a dull brownish red, noticed on some of the Pisan “bacini.” Passeri states that the reflection of the sun’s rays from the concave surfaces of these “bacini” at Pesaro was most brilliant, and hence it has been wrongly inferred that they were enriched with metallic lustre. We believe that this effect may arise from iridescence on the surface of the soft lead glaze, easily decomposed by the action of the atmosphere in the neighbourhood of the sea.