Tin-glazing was introduced in the 13th century from the Middle East through the Muslim civilization in southern Spain, wares being shipped from there to Italy by Majorcan traders. The term majolica was at first applied to this Hispano-Moresque lustreware, but in the 16th century it came to denote all tin-glazed ware.

Italian majolica is principally noteworthy for its painted decoration, which excelled in technical competence anything produced in Europe since classical times. The painting was executed in several colours on the dry but unfired tin glaze. Great skill was needed, since the surface absorbed the colour as blotting paper absorbs ink, and erasures were therefore impossible. The best wares were given a final coating of clear lead glaze called coperta. The range of colours was comparatively limited: cobalt blue, copper green, manganese purple, antimony yellow, and iron red formed the basic palette, while white was provided by the tin-glaze material. When white was used for painting, it was applied onto a bluish-white glaze (bianco sopra bianco, or “white on white”), or on a light-blue (berettino), or dark-blue ground.

Lustre pigments were introduced from Spain. The lustre of Italian wares is often the golden-yellow colour derived from silver, and sometimes it is ruby, suggesting the use of gold. The silver lustre often developed a nacreous effect known as mother-of-pearl (madre perle).

The forms of majolica are few and fairly simple. Generally, they were dictated by the need for a surface on which the painter could exercise his skill; thus, dishes form the greater part of surviving wares. It is doubtful whether most majolica was ever intended for general use. Dishes were displayed on sideboards and buffets more often than they were placed on the table. Gaily coloured drug jars were a fashionable decoration for pharmacies and include the albarello shape, copied from Spain, for dry drugs, and a spouted jar for wet drugs. Ewers (pitchers) with a trefoil (leafshaped) spout, derived from the Greek oenochoe, were made, as well as the massive jars representative of Florentine work of the 15th century.

The earliest majolica, beginning in the 13th century, is decorated in green and manganese purple in imitation of the Spanish Paterna ware. Much work of this kind was done at Orvieto, in Umbria, where the characteristic form was a jug with a disproportionately large pouring lip. Orvieto ware has almost become a generic term for anything in this style, although similar vessels were made at Florence, Siena, and elsewhere. It was current in the 14th century and continued in the 15th century, when other colours were added to the palette. The decorative motifs—masks, animals, and foliage—are Gothic, with some traces of Eastern influence.

From Florence came a series of wares painted in a dark, inky, impasto (or very thick) blue. These, too, have Gothic ornament, particularly oak leaves, which came into use sometime before 1450. Heraldic animals also appear on some specimens. This kind of decoration was obviously inspired by Spanish pottery, and a few examples are hardly more than copies. Soon after 1500, Florentine production was concentrated in the castle of Caffagiolo, in Tuscany, and came under the patronage of the Medici family, whose arms appear frequently. A notable addition to the palette here was a bright red pigment, a most difficult colour to attain and one not often used.

Gothic ornament was gradually displaced by classical motifs, such as grotesques, trophies, and the like, which, early in the 16th century, themselves gave way to the istoriato style. This style, no doubt inspired by the achievements of contemporary painting, imitates the easel picture closely. Its realism, including the use of perspective, is quite unlike any previous ceramic decoration. The subjects were often classical, but biblical subjects, some taken from the woodcuts of Bernard Salomon (c. 1506–61), are frequently represented. Majolica was often called Raffaelle ware, a tribute to the influence of the painter Raphael (1483–1520), although he, in fact, never made any designs for pottery. In particular the majolica painters copied his grotteschi (grotesques), motifs adapted from those rediscovered in the grottoes of the Golden House of Nero soon after 1500 and so-called in consequence. They are usually fantastic combinations of human, animal, and plant forms. The works of Albrecht Dürer and Andrea Mantegna were also borrowed, often through engravings made by Jacopo Ripanda (Jacopa da Bologna and Marcantonio Raimondi); some examples are almost exact copies, others are freer interpretations. The paintings sometimes occupy the centre of the dish with a border of formal ornament surrounding them, but in many instances, notably those from Urbino, they cover the entire surface. It is often impossible to regard the pottery body as anything more than a support for the painting, its pictorial or narrative subject having been executed with little or no consideration for the nature of the object it decorated. Although pottery decoration is rarely successful unless it is designed to enhance, or at least not to detract from, the shape of the body, an exception must be made for some of these colourful wares: at their best they are highly ornamental.

The istoriato style probably developed at Faenza (Emilia) in about 1500. One of the earliest and most important centres of production, it had been manufacturing majolica since before 1450. Almost as early are some examples from Caffagiolo. Castel Durante adopted the same style, and it is particularly associated with the name of Nicola Pellipario, the greatest of the majolica painters. He also painted grotesques similar to those of Deruta, in Umbria, which are rather more stylized than the grotesques introduced later in the 16th century at Urbino that are humourous and full of movement. The former are often used as a surround to an interior medallion in the istoriato style. Urbino was probably the largest centre for the manufacture of majolica at the time. The industry there was under the patronage of the Della Rovere family, whose name, meaning “oak tree,” led to the adoption of the oak-leaf motif in wreathed form.

Among the early factories, that of Deruta (which may have been under the patronage of Cesare Borgia) is of considerable importance. Majolica has been made there from medieval times, and manufacture continues in the mid-20th century. Deruta potters about 1500 were the first to use lustre pigment, which was of a pale-yellow tone, and they also adopted the Spanish practice of painting designs on the reverse of dishes. They also often covered only the obverse with tin glaze and applied a lead glaze to the reverse—again, a typically Spanish practice. The best work was done before 1540.

The use of lustre pigments at Gubbio, in Umbria, probably started soon after it began at Deruta. The quality of the work was such that majolica was sent from Castel Durante, Faenza, and even from Deruta itself for this additional embellishment. An interesting series of dishes is that painted with the portraits of young women, often with the addition of a terse and appreciative comment such as “Bella,” which were made at Deruta, and also apparently at Gubbio.

Majolica was manufactured in Venice between the 16th and 18th centuries. As might be expected in an important seaport with worldwide trade, its majolica often shows Eastern influence. The designs of Iznik were sometimes copied (as they were, in fact, on other Italian wares of the period), and imitations of Chinese porcelain of the Ming period gave rise to a style known as alla porcellana (“in the manner of porcelain”).

Of the later potteries, that of Castelli, near Naples, did excellent work from the 16th century onward, although its later wares tend to become pedestrian. Istoriato painting was revived there in the 17th century in a palette paler in tone than that of early work in this style. Much majolica survives from Savona, in Liguria, a good deal of which is painted in blue in Oriental styles.

Although hardly to be classified as pottery, sculptured reliefs were made by Luca della Robbia (died 1482) in terra cotta and covered with majolica glazes. He was followed by his nephew, Andrea, and the latter’s sons. Giorgio Vasari’s suggestion that Luca invented the majolica glaze is erroneous.

Sgraffito wares

Sgraffito wares are comparatively rare. The technique was derived from Byzantine sources by way of Cyprus which was under Venetian rule from 1472 to 1570. Manufacture was confined to northern Italy, the largest centre being at Bologna. The body of the sgraffito ware was covered with a slip of contrasting colour, the decoration then being scratched through to the body beneath and the whole covered with a lead glaze, which has a yellowish tone. Often the incised designs were first embellished with underglaze colours (blue, green, purple, brown, and yellow) that tended to run during firing. This technique died out finally at the end of the 18th century, but some important work of the kind was done in the late 15th and 16th centuries.

Porcelain

There are only about 50 surviving pieces of the soft-paste porcelain made in Florence at the time of the Medicis, and little is known of its actual production. The earliest definite date for manufacture is 1581. Painting is nearly always in blue with manganese outlines. Most decorative motifs are derived from China, Persia, or Turkey, and the forms usually copy those of Urbino majolica.

No hard porcelain was made in Italy until Francesco and Giuseppe Vezzi’s factory was established in Venice in 1720. It made fine hard porcelain the body of which has a slightly smoky colour. The style is Baroque, and the palette is notable for a brownish red. Another factory, that of Geminiano Cozzi, started in 1764, was the one where most Venetian porcelain was made. Cozzi worked in the Meissen and Sèvres styles and produced some good figures.

The porcelain factory at Doccia, near Florence, was founded by Marchese Carlo Ginori in 1735. Coffeepots in the Baroque style, sometimes painted with coats of arms, are characteristic of the early period. Equally fine figures were made during the 18th century. Porcelain with figure subjects in low relief was made only at Doccia, although it has been repeatedly and erroneously attributed to the soft-porcelain factory established in the royal palace of Capodimonte by Charles III of Naples in 1743. As well as extremely well painted service ware, Capodimonte is renowned for its figures. The factory was transferred to Buen Retiro, near Madrid, in 1759, when Charles became king of Spain (see above Spain).