Terre di Toscana

History of Ceramics in Tuscany

13th century Tuscany laid the foundations for the setting up of a number of production centres which flourished in the14th and 15th centuries in these towns and their surrounding countryside. This created such a widespread market as to be considered truly “global”.
Recurrent economic crises in this sector were overcome thanks to the inventions (today we would call them “innovations”) which potters were able to introduce into their work and also thanks to a search for sufficient financing to support production and face up to fierce competition from outside Tuscany and other countries in Europe.

The relationship between production and the market has always been at the heart of the long story of Montelupo ceramics and the Impruneta “cotto” (red terracotta) which due to the enormous impetus they had in the 15th and 16th centuries continue to have industrial success even today. Both the market and creative innovation are behind the 18th century venture of the marquis Carlo Ginori in Doccia as well as the work of the great artist Galileo Chini in Borgo San Lorenzo, and even the rather original story of the Milani family in Montopoli.
In other areas in Tuscany the setting up of kilns for firing terracotta (mainly storage jars and large plant pots) has to be seen as a phenomenon strictly tied to local agricultural economy: this is so in the case of the Sienese rural area of Trequanda and Petroio.

With the unification of Italy, Tuscan production acquired a new impetus; new production centres arose in places like Anghiari and Montepulciano, which trace their origins way back in time, and attracted those who wished to learn ceramic art. It is no coincidence that Emanuele Repetti, in his Dizionario Geografico Fisico Storico della Toscana tells of the flourishing activity in the Pisa area, from Vicopisano to Pomarance.
Territories and communities which, while still jealously guarding the memory and knowledge of ancient traditions, have been able to step into a contemporary world, turning their cultural and artistic heritage into a trump card against the complex challenge of a dynamic economy and a market which knows no frontiers.

• INTRODUCING THE HISTORY OF CERAMICS IN TUSCANY
• A summary
• THE AREAS
• Arezzo
• Firenze - Prato
• Pisa
• Siena

Montepulciano

Borgo San Lorenzo

Anghiari

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