Fig. 19. Plateau or Tazza; Caffaggiolo Ware.

Fig. 20. Pesaro Portrait Dish (about 1500). (S. K. M).

Fig. 21. Drug Pot; Siena. (S. K. M).

Fig. 22. Siena Plate. (S. K. M).

Fig. 23. Siena Plate. (S. K. M).

Fig. 24. Lustred Dish; Gubbio Ware. (S. K. M).

Fig. 25. Vase in Copper-ruby Lustre; Gubbio. (S. K. M).

Fig. 26. The Stream of Life; Tazza by M° Giorgio.

Fig. 27. Tazza by Giorgio. (S. K. M).

Fig. 28. Embossed Fruit Dish; Gubbio. (S. K. M).

Fig. 29. Castel-Durante Maiolica. (S. K. M).

Urbino is a city celebrated in the art and literature of Italy in the Renaissance period, and her dukes rivalled the Medici family of Florence in the patronage and encouragement of art, science, and literature. The names of the Urbino maiolica artists have been fortunately well preserved. Those of Nicola da Urbino, Guido Fontana. and his more famous son Orazio, also another son, Camillo, the versatile artists in "Majoliche istoriate," and Francesco Xanto, may be mentioned as the most important.

To the first-named artist, Nicola, is ascribed the earliest authentic works from the potteries of Urbino, the celebrated service of maiolica, painted probably between the years 1490 and 1519, for Isabella d'Este, wife of the Marquis of Mantua, and known as the Gonzaga-Este service. Two fine plates of this service are in the British Museum. They have the arms of Gonzaga impaling those of Este on a shield, and one of them has the painted subjects of Apollo and Daphne, and Apollo and the Python, while the other has a representation of a troop of horse soldiers entering a city. The figures are delicately and carefully outlined and the colouring is brilliant.

Orazio Fontana

Orazio Fontana was the most celebrated of the family of • that name. His best work was done from 1540 to 1560, and he was the artist proprietor of a botega at Urbino, from whence came many of the finest works ever made in that city, not only as regards their artistic qualities but in the beauty and finish of the maiolica ware. The "istoriati" panels, or figure subjects (usually mythological) which were copies or adaptations of engraved designs by Italian painters, were the work of Orazio himself, and the grotesques probably from the hand of his brother or some other artist.

The Pilgrim Bottle

The Pilgrim Bottle (Fig. 31) is from the botega of Orazio Fontana; but the grotesques on it are supposed to have been painted by his brother Camillo. One artist named Gironimo was very clever at this grotesque, or "Raphael-esque" work as it is sometimes called - not from the great Raphael Sanzio, but from the artist Raphael dal Colle, who introduced this grotesque design among other work of his for the decoration of the Pesaro ware, in the duchy of Urbino. These grotesques were afterwards called "Urbino arabesques" and were of a different character to the grotesques of the Gubbio ware, which may be seen by comparing the dish of Urbino ware signed by Gironimo (Fig. 32) with Fig. 27.

There is a circular dish of Urbino ware in the Museum at Kensington on which is painted the subject of the marriage of Alexander with Roxana, from an engraving by Marc Antonio Raimondi, after Raphael's design. This work is signed by Francesco Xanto (1533), a prolific and somewhat careless artist who took great liberties with the designs he adapted, like most of the maiolica painters. The colouring of this dish is very rich: the colours generally of the Urbino school were green, yellow, and blue, and a predominance of orange on a light or white ground.

Faenza Pottery

Faenza Pottery is among the oldest in Italy, but little is known of the early artists or potteries. Many pieces of doubtful origin have been classed as Faentine, but without any positive proof.

In the Cluny Museum in Paris there are a pair of phar-macy jars or vases, one of which bears the inscription "Faenza," and the other is dated 1500, their excellence proving that good work was done at Faenza at this date, or perhaps much earlier. The pottery works called the Casa Pirota was the principal establishment for the production of maiolica at Faenza.

Many works from this pottery are in the Kensington Museum, and they seem generally to be the work of one hand, but there is no record of the artist. He painted a certain kind of grotesque, and figures of boys on plates of a wide border. The colours are a light blue on a dark blue ground, the light blue heightened with touches of white, and shaded with a brownish yellow. This style is known as "sopra azzuro" and is very characteristic of the unknown painter's work (Fig. 33).

A fine tazza in the same museum by the Faentine artist who signs himself as F. R. has the painted subject "the Gathering of the Manna," after Raphael.

The colours used are strong and rich yellows, blues, greens, orange, and purple tints. This work is much superior to that of another Faentine artist who used the same initials. An oblong panel or plaque in the Kensington Collection, 9¾ inches in height by 8 inches in width, has a painting of the Resurrection after a design by Melozzo de Forli, signed with a monogram consisting of T and B. It is a maiolica work of the highest rank, carefully executed yet with perfect freedom of touch - for carefulness of execution in pottery painting very often implies hardness - and pleasing combinations of blues, yellows, greens, and golden browns, with little touches of red. Mr. Fortnum thinks it was painted by the same artist that executed the famous service of maiolica of which seventeen pieces are in the Museo Correr at Venice. The tazza at Fig. 34 is ascribed to the Faenza fabriques. It is as much Gothic as Italian in design, which is the case sometimes in Northern Italian art, and it has been found also that the "istoriati" maiolica of Faenza has more of its subjects from the engravings of German artists' works, such as D?rer, Martin Schon, and others, than the pottery of any other Italian fabrique. Maiolica has been fabricated at many other places in Italy, such as Diruta, Forli, Rimini, Padua, Ferrara, Genoa, and Venice, but space prevents us here from giving any descriptive notice of them, further than the mention of the Venetian botegas where many important examples came from during the sixteenth century. The Venetian dishes of this time were covered with ingenious and elaborate designs of interlacing ornament, foliage, birds, masks, with tyings of ribbons or drapery (Fig. 35). The colour of the enamelled surface is white slightly tinted with zafffre blue. A low-toned blue colour was employed for the ornament, which was outlined and shaded with a darker blue and heightened with white.

Fig. 30. Drug Pot; Castel-Durante Ware. (S. K. M).

Fig. 31. Pilgrim Bottle; Urbino Ware. (S. K. M).

Fig. 32. Urbino Dish, with "Urbino Arabesques." (S. K. M).

Fig. 33. Faenza Plate. (S. K. M).

Fig. 34. Faenza Maiolica. (S. K. M).

Fig. 35. Venetian Dish. (S. K. M).