Sicily - late March

Emilia-Romagna - early April

Ferrara Intro

Apartment

Museums

Rossetti

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Ravenna Hills 1

Ravenna Hills 2

Faenza

Tuscany, Florence - April 8

Umbria - late April

The Ceramics of Faenza

Another day, we took the train to Faenza. We had had some hard days sight-seeing. (And one day after an eight-hour ramble, I fell down and made myself look pretty stupid. But within 10 seconds of my tumble, there were eight or 10 people gathered around, helping me up, finding my packages and my glasses and generally being sympathetic and wonderful. The only bad thing was some attractive bruising and my glasses got sprung, but the next day a shop on the main drag fixed them for nothing. But more about the glasses later. Oh, and Dawn thought for a moment that she'd killed me, but she hadn't and it was entirely my own stumbly feet and the cobblestones.) Anyway we (I, at least) were a bit tired and we vowed to do the ceramics museum and anything else only if it was particularly appealing and we had the energy.

As it turned out the ceramics museum was quite absorbing and took most of the time we had available between trains. Faenza is a pretty community with tree-lined streets, a mix of old and new buildings (and no smell of olive-pit charcoal production at all). We had a nice lunch at the Caffe Vittoria (I give you this link because it's a typical example of a trendy Italian web site, NOT because I think it's good web design.) The Caffe Vittoria is on Corso Garbaldi and we were directed from there to the ceramics museum. This turned out to be about six blocks closer to the train station than where we had lunch, But what the heck, it was a nice day and one can't expect people at the train station to answer every question from those pesky tourists, or put up directions to the community's main claim to fame, can one? (Walking through town also gave us an opportunity to examine the many ceramic commercial signs and building decorations, a sampling of which are shown in the photos in this paragraph.)

The museum, Museo Internazionale della Ceramiche, has an far-ranging display, including some lovely pre-Columbian pieces from the New World. But the majority of the collection is Italian, of course, with an emphasis on the late Middle Ages. At this time, Italy, and Faenze in particular, specialized in a glazing technique now known as "faience," also called "majolica" or "maiolica."

The faience technique is thought to have originated in Andalusia on the Iberian Peninsula (now Spain and Portugal), been brought to Italy by the Moors and perfected here. It involves adding tin to the glazing, as opposed to the lead-only glazing previously used. The result is a clean, white background and bright, sparkling colors. The Italians were masters of this technique and many artisans in the town still use the old glaze mixtures. Here's the Faenza faience page. Dutch Delft is also a sort of faience as are those German steins. (Just to keep things interesting, some ceramics scholars have also decided to call the Egyptian technique of glazing with quartz by the name faience, but the real deal is from Italy.)

Also worth noting at the museum is the extensive section devoted to the influence of Asian ceramic techniques and design approaches on European artisans when they finally discovered each other.

And some of the pieces are most unusual. I tend to think of ceramics with limited functions (dishes and tiles) or decorations, wall pieces, small sculptures. But this exhibit will challenge almost anyone's pre-conceptions. There are many portraits, for example and elaborate ink stands, perhaps an art form that the lesser nobles could afford. There are dozens of ceramic reality "paintings" from the Middle Ages. The museum also has a large modern collection, featuring winners of the biennial Competition for Contemporary Ceramic Art. And some pieces by modern artists--Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse.

The museum is bright and airy and was not at all crowded when we were there (there may have been half a dozen other people). They have too many wonderful things to describe very well, but I do want to tell you about one display--the "Zucchini cradle" or "Zucchini Christmas Crib." With a name like that, we had no idea what to expect. You have to be led to the basement and someone turns on the lights for you and shows you into a darkened room. It is a giant nativity scene developed over several years in the 18th century for the Duke Zucchini. I don't know what he was the Duke of. I think it takes a pope or a king to make you a duke and I think this display is his only claim to fame. "Zucca" means squash in Italian so Zucchini are multiple small male squashes. Except that zucchini are by definition female, since they only grow from female flowers, so it should be spelled "zucchine." And besides that, all squashes originated in the Americas, so how did an Italian Duke get named for one? But I digress.

At this time, there apparently was an upper-class, civilized competition to have the most elaborate creche in the territory. Duke Zucchini clearly won. The set-up is in its own room, occupying about 300 sq. fit behind a protective railing (no photos allowed, sorry). It has the standard manger scene, but set up like a theatrical performance in a medieval village with additional characters--about 60 in all plus another dozen or so angels. There are eight or 10 elaborate back-drop levels. No, just one back-drop--multiple side curtains of canvas or maybe paper to help with perspective. I don't know what you call these. The figures get smaller as the implied distance increases and the side drapes narrow the proscenium view correspondingly and are all painted to show scenery at their depth. I hope that's clear, it was a wonderful effect.

In the closest view the figures are about 1 ft. high--the wise men, shepherds and so on. At the next level back, the angels, the holy family and the manger with some animals--camels, horses, cows, a donkey. Then the village scenes--a woman with geese in a basket, a woman spinning, a bunch of men standing around (of course!), a woman scolding a little boy, other people talking or carving or marketing at three or four levels. Back, back, back to the local stream and hillside, where some ascetic or another is sitting in front of his cave. You DO remember that this is a ceramics museum, right? So all the figures (holy family, wise men, angels, villagers, animals, ascetic) are ceramic, beautifully formed and painted; just the scenery is painted on canvas (or paper). I've never seen or even heard of such a thing. Oh, I do have to mention that there are NO SHEEP! Was the Duke allergic? Was this exclusively cattle country? Was the artist incompetent with sheep? I fear we'll never know.

Anyway the museum was excellent all around and then we went around to some of the local ceramics shops looking for tiles for Dawn's kitchen remodel, but had no luck. A fine time, nonetheless, and eventually we found this nice bar in an inner courtyard and saw a local painter riding home with his supplies on his bicycle, including his ladder. The wine was great and the free goodies were even better--nuts, cheese, little frittate, salami, etc. I do wish we still had some of this more in the U.S.

Next, Florence. Not as good as we had hoped. But it's still Florence.

p.s. If this museum particularly interests you, they have an excellent pdf brochure that you can download from this page, including one picture of the Zucchini cradle.