Caltagirone and its museum

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Caltagirone and its museum
Researches Caterina Giuliana Traslation by Anna
Annaloro
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• The art of ceramics has developed in Caltagirone
  since the prehistory being a centre rich of clay
  and forests which provided, without any charge,
  the wood for the ovens and the production of
  honey, with the following request of Burnie for
  the stocking of the products.
• The Arabian people arrived in Sicily in the ninth
  century A. C. and called the Byzantine village
  Qualat al génun that meant the hill of vases
  (the actual Caltagirone) appreciating the local
  advanced tradition of working ceramics.

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• The REGIONAL MUSEUM OF CERAMICS IN CALTAGIRONE
• was founded by Don Luigi Sturzo, who, in 1918
  about, feeling the imminent danger of a
  dispersion and abandonment of this ancient
  tradition, wanted to realize the Institute Of
  the Art of Ceramics to which the recovery and
  the revival of the ancient handicrafts are due.
  Afterwards, being the collection of Sicilian
  ceramics materials very copious and important as
  models, the idea to open a museum became
  stronger.

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In 1965, thanks to Professor Antonio Ragonas
imposing work, both recovering the collected
materials and starting systematic studies on the
Sicilian ceramics, in particular the calatina
one, with passionate scientific and cultural
engagement the museum was established and
situated in the hearth of the old city, in the
beautiful scenery of the Italian historical
garden of Caltagirone, in a building whose
entrance is the beautiful and imposing frame of
the eighteenth-century Theatre by Bonaiuto.
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the three sections of the museum
In the first There are products from the
prehistoric to the paleochristian age
In the second There are materials of the medieval
period with finds dated from X to XV century
In the third The largest, there are materials
from the XVI century to the modern age
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• It was just with the arrival of the Arabians in
  Sicily and of the many furnaces they lighted in
  all the Sicilian territory that a rich period of
  the Sicilian-Arabian ceramics developped between
  the X e the XII century.

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SOME GROUPS OF CERAMICS PRESERVED IN THE MUSEUM

• FIRST GROUP
• Large quantities of fragments coming from the
  furnaces (active in the II century) of Syracuse,
  in the area where Apollos temple is. They are
  very fine examples of ceramics decorated with
  zoomorphic and fitomorphic patterns with a
  refined penmanship.

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• SECOND GROUP
• The museum has a large quantity of materials
  covered by a thick green emerald glazing, with
  decorations grooved or pressed on the object just
  turned and on which the glaze, put on the clay
  after the first cooking, softens, with an
  extraordinary effect, the furrows of the
  decoration.
• This kind of decoration comes to Sicily from
  Persia, Baghdad and Egypt.

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Glaze bowl with carved decorations From furnaces
of S.Lucia (Agrigento), XII century. Caltagirone,
Museum of Ceramics.
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THIRD GROUP

• The most homogeneous nucleus of finds, more
  numerous and significant of this institution,
  comes from the four furnaces of Agrigento active
  between the XI and the XIV century.
• The preserved material is meanly formed by glaze
  lead-bearing ceramics decorated with geometric
  fitomorphic and zoomorphic patterns.
• It should be noted the change of shape, the bowl
  with vertical shape disappears and the one with
  an hemispheric crown and the one with a flat brim
  become popular.

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Small glaze basin with bicroma decoration of a
fantasic animal. From Agrigento, end of XI
century. Caltagirone, Museum of Ceramics.
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• FOURTH GROUP
• The news of the XIII century is the proto
  majolica, the production of objects in ceramics
  realised with this technique which, after the
  cooking, appeared white-yellow, had a great
  development in the area of western Sicily. Some
  of these ceramics, are classified as ceramics of
  the type of Gela, from the place of discovery,
  come also from the furnaces of Caltagirone.
• As many products of the inland, they came
  together in the loader of Gela, probably as
  pottery for the crew of the ships which left to
  reach the coast of north Africa. The museum also
  hosts a rich collection of this kind of ceramics
  coming from the furnaces of Syracuse.

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Bowl in protomajolica, with atrichromium painted
decoration and portaying a wild boar. From
Enna, XIII century. Caltagirone, Museum of
Ceramics.
Bowl in protomajolica, with a monochromium
painted decoration and portaying a fish. From
Enna, XIV century. Caltagirone, Museum of
Ceramics.
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• XIII CENTURY
• DECORATIONS
• Linear, geometric, calligraph
• Plaits
• Crossing small archs
• Vegetal and animal patterns
• COLOURS
• Manganese (brown)
• Green copper
• Iron yellow

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XIV CENTURY

• DECORATIONS
• heraldry
• sharp and simple lines
• Fields with fences
• PAINTINGS
• Simple with animals, flowers, leaves.
• We often find shields and armorial bearings
• COLOURS
• Brown
• green
• Then only brown

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Bowl in protomajolica with the monochomium
portaying of a bird with open wings from whose
beak hangs a shoot which ends with two leaves.
From Syracuse, XIV century. Caltagirone, Museum
of Ceramics.
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• During the XV century, the proto majolica has
  been transformed in majolica.
• This period marks the passage of a century and a
  phase of transaction for the whole production of
  Sicilian ceramics.

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FIFTH GROUPThe golden polish and the bright
blue, inherited by the Catalan and the Valencia
ones, painted with free brushes and without
borders, characterize, in various forms due to
the evolution of the form, all the Renaissance
ceramics preserved in this Museum.
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Bowl in metal polish with bichromium decorations
and fitomorph patterns. XVI century. Caltagirone
Museum of Ceramics.
Tile in majolica monochromium, with fitomorph
decoration and pomegranate. Production in
Caltagirone, XVI century. Caltagirone, Museum of
Ceramics. .
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Cylinder in majolica monochromium with the
decoration of a Petrsian palm. Production
Caltagirone, end of XVI, beginning of XVII
century. Caltagirone, Museum of Ceramics.
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• The XVI century marked a period of crisis for the
  production of the Sicilian because of the arrival
  from the north of ceramics of Casteldurante,
  Faenza, Napoli, Montelupo, the following ceramics
  will have a period of tendency to quote from
  previous authors.

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• SIXTH GROUP
• The museum preserves a great number of models of
  the XVII century
• Ceramics set aside to the table, the larder and
  to the spices.
• Jugs and vases and small trees in which an
  iconography tied to the portrayal of Saints,
  protectors, patrons and angels.
• Models with magnificent trophies of arms and
  drums in the centre of the handcraft do not miss.

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• In the Eighteenth century, in Sicily, industries
  in Palermo and Trapani are established and they
  work out patterns and forms mainly from Tuscany,
  as bombole and trees, generally decorated with
  coats of arms and botanic patterns

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• SEVENTH GROUP
• Another meaningful group of materials exposed in
  the Museum, are the ceramics in Venetian style.
  They recall the famous Venetian blue, brightened
  by strokes of yellow, green and brilliant ochre
  which melt together with the volumes of jugs and
  vases.

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Cylinder and small tree with decoration
polichromium of a large foliage on a blue
background. From Caltagirone, second half of
XVIII.
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• The Sicilian products, on which the blue glaze
  predominate, so called Genoa cap belong to the
  cultural influence of Liguria . Therefore in the
  eighteenth century more autonomous expressions of
  the local creativeness dont miss, such as the
  marble products by Antonio and Salvatore
  Bertolone, a family of Catalan able majolica
  artisans.

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Bowl in majolica polichromium portaying a hare.
Production Caltagirone, Regional Museum of
Ceramics.
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• All the XVIII century is marked by the domina
  lansia della ricostruzione seguita al
  catastrofico terremoto che nel 1693 aveva
  distrutto mezza Sicilia, le chiese costituiscono
  al principale committenza dellartigianato
  siciliano, si cominciarono a produrre grandiosi
  pavimenti, pannelli murali destinati ai luoghi di
  culto, alle case patrizie, anfore e urne che
  testimoniano la bravura degli artigiani calatini
  non solo come maiolicari ma anche come abilissimi
  plasticatori.
• In the XVIII century the artisans of Palermo
  were known above all for the realisation of
  polychromatic floors inside the churches and
  other public buildings of this èpoque.period
  where we can find mainly zoomorphic, vegetal and
  geometric patterns
• Notable artisans of that period are Polizzi,
  Dragotta, Branciforti, Bertolone, Ventimiglia e
  Di Bartolo.

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• In the museum there are monumental vestry
  lavabos, dated 1770. And you can also find
  beautiful majolica tiles for decorative panels,
  for the streets numbers and names, district
  names and votive tablet with the image of saints
  or important episodes of their life.

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Votive tile and stoup, of XIX century.
Production Caltagirone, Regional Museum of
Ceramics.
Vase a lavabro in majolica polichromiumwith
plastic decorations. Production Caltagirone,
Regional Museum of Ceramics.
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Tile in majolica of XVIII century. Production
Caltagirone, Regional Museum of Ceramics.
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• In the museum among the object realised in the
  nineteenth century, besides the crockery and
  glassware to store food, we can find vases and
  vase for garden plants recalling the traditional
  decorations of the Sicilian culture.
• The anthropomorphic lanterns of popular
  inspiration can be also seen

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• Drawing inspiration from the characters of the
  folk and from the tradition of handcrafts,
  Giacomo Bongiovanni e Giuseppe Vaccaro are the
  latest real artists who, working as figurine
  designers and the realisation of beautiful
  crèches, end the fertile history of ceramics in
  Caltagirone, and more in general, in Sicily.

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Giacomo Vaccaro, Lite in the fountain, XIX
century, Production Caltagirone, Regional Museum
of Ceramics.
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Geuseppe Bongiovanni and Vaccaro, Nativity, XIX
century, Production Caltagirone, Regional Museum
of Ceramics.