History of Ceramics in Tuscany

Vicopisano's ceramics

The territory of Vicopisano is one of the places which have given life to the production of ceramics in Tuscany but which are still waiting for historical research which will finally throw light on their rightful place in the regional development of earthenware production. The main walled town, essential element in populating and protecting the borders of the city of Pisa, later becoming a Florentine stronghold, soon had to take part in the process of spreading archaic majolica, through the activity of workshops in the town, whose products are still to be recognized among the vast mass of glazed artefacts from Pisa, exported throughout the Mediterranean.
The conquest of Pisa by Florentines (1406) and the clear boycotting of the economic activities of the Crusader city and its surrounding area, most probably caused an initial slacking off in earthenware production, although Pisa was able to react to this in the middle-term (about 1440) by starting up new manufacture, and in particular, by promoting a hitherto unknown (in Tuscany) manufacture of engobed and sgraffitoed ceramics. We know little about this change in technique and production in Pisa. It may well be due to the exploitation of surface clay found both in the country around Pisa and in areas around Siena, well connected to the port of Pisa through the use of off-shore coaster craft.

There is still lack of widespread evidence of this 15th century change to engobed ceramics which allowed potters in this territory to stand up to, often with notable commercial results, the invasion of glazed Florentine ceramics, aided, above all, by the kilns in Montelupo, and favoured by the introduction of merchant capital in the City of the lily (Florence) into those ceramic enterprises.
The first substantiated proof of ceramic work in the town territory of Vicopisano is found in 16th century documents, kept in the local historical archives. The evidence shows how earthenware production was at the time concentrated in the present village of San Giovanni alla Vena, a place situated on the banks of the Arno, where they could exploit with relative ease clay deposits from the river and at the same time use the waterway to transport the finished product. Archive documents show also that it was, above all, a production of kitchen utensils. It is therefore conceivable that economic changes in the 16th century favoured this type of specialization and the permanent setting up of kilns in San Giovanni.

In a report written at the time of the famous flood in 1559, referring to damage suffered by local potters, it states that the waters “took away … a large quantity of wood for kilns and ruined much of the work of potters …” while a list compiled a few years later, in 1562, mentions the “master craftsmen of red earth, that is jugs, pots and pans”, identifying this as the special work of those potters. It is not unlikely, however, that the manufacture of kitchen utensils was accompanied by the development of the production of engobed ceramics (sgraffitoed, painted, dappled and “marbled” using lead glaze) which in those years invaded the regional market.
A more clearly outlined situation appears in 1587, when in San Giovanni a detailed census (by type, location and ownership) lists as many as 27 kilns all “firing pots and other ware” and 29 utensil manufacturers are named (the vast majority as owners of said kilns). This, then, shows a very active production, strictly tied to the place and without the intervention of capital from the city itself.

Once it had finally disintegrated, during the 18th century, the production of secondary objects, the economic revival recorded at the end of the Modern Era, and even earlier, at the beginning of the 19th century, kilns operating in the area of Vicopisano were producing basins and other utilitarian objects, in which the engobing technique and especially glazing, was still fundamental.
The village of Cucigliana, near San Giovanni alla Vena, joined this last, by developing new processes with great enthusiasm. A report in 1854 in fact, identifies here a factory of “black plates in the Genoese style” which came to produce as many as 23.000 dozens of these artefacts, objects sold in the main areas of the Grand Duchy. It was, in fact, a fortunate imitation of the “taches noires” from Savona and Albisola, terracotta objects which were heavily glazed to imitate china, as well as being summarily decorated in manganese.
From the beginning of the 19th century, these constituted the spearhead of ceramic export from Liguria to Tuscany. Also in Cucigliana there was a factory of “terracotta pottery, that is basins, jugs etc.” which produced around 10.000 dozens, employing six workers permanently.

However, ceramic production was more developed in San Giovanni, where the census recorded six operating kilns, with around thirty people employed in the factory, producing an estimated 100.000 pieces.
The staple production of this traditional manufacture was the making of basins which were different in shape and decoration from others made at the same time at other centres. Among them there was what was called “a zampa di coniglio” (rabbit’s foot) which consisted in three spots together, similar to a footprint, in brown manganese, and stood out on a yellowish glaze.
Both this kind of basin and those dappled in green copper oxide were made on a wheel, but between the 19th and 20th centuries, a new “mechanized” technique was used which consisted in moulding the clay inside plaster models using a mechanical instrument called “modine”. The increased capacity of production of the “modine”, which is still in use as a traditional method, made these types of receptacles extremely successful.
The crisis which progressively involved the firms which continued to produce objects already replaced by plastic materials and by post-war technology, finally determined the creation of craft factories and workshops which produced glazed ceramics which followed the mainstream of well recognized regional manufacture, but which often showed, however, an untrammelled search for new shapes, colours and expressions, being free from traditional ties.

Fausto Berti