Historical notes on ceramics in Sicily

Let's now turn to some historical notes on the evolution of the creative process in Sicily.
As already mentioned, planet Earth abounds in clay, and this is why in our island, too, clay has always been used to create objects useful for daily use such as plates, glasses, bottles, and various kinds of tools.

The plasticity of clay diluted in water made it easy to use widely throughout Sicily.
The first artifacts were made with the coil or colombino technique, which was a technique that did not require the use of any tool other than human hands. A thin sheet of clay was prepared to form the base of the artifact, and then many "salamini" (small salamis) made of clay strips rolled by hand were applied to it. Once the desired shape was achieved, the object was dried and then fired. The invention of the potter's wheel marked a first technological revolution in the creation of clay works. The use of this tool allowed master potters to create works more quickly and, above all, lighter and more refined than those made with the coil technique.

Naturally, the oldest works, since they were intended for use, were not usually enriched with decorations, and even when they were "embellished," the decorations were very simple.
Until the 12th century, a period that can be defined as "proto-majolica," the decoration of terracotta was done using the engobe technique.

The clay work, while still damp, was decorated using colored earths diluted in water, usually with the use of a brush, and was then fired.

With this technique, the work could take on various chromatic shades but remained opaque and, above all, "porous."
During the proto-majolica period, the colors used were mainly copper green, manganese, and yellow. An example of proto-majolica decoration are the basins decorated with fish and lapwing.
A fundamental historical period for ceramics in Sicily is that of Arab domination. It was the masters from the East who introduced the technique of tin-glazing to the island and with it initiated the birth of Majolica.
Tin oxide, by allowing the surface to be decorated to be uniformly white, enabled majolica masters to decorate on a more uniform surface and to obtain, after the second firing, works of much greater refinement than in the past. The majolica work, in fact, had the characteristic of being impermeable, and the colors could now be much brighter than in the past.
If the birth of Sicilian majolica is due to Arab domination, it was during the period of Spanish domination that it was enriched with new colors, primarily blue derived from the oxidation of cobalt. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the art of majolica spread throughout the island, and increasingly elaborate artifacts were created.
In the city of Palermo, in particular, majolica, which previously came from the peninsula commissioned by various art merchants to workshops in Faenza, Casteldurante, or Montelupo, began to be produced locally.
The ever-increasing demands of apothecaries and confraternities led to the creation of workshops that began by re-elaborating Renaissance artifacts from workshops on the Italian peninsula and ended up distancing themselves from them, creating original forms and decorations according to the taste and abilities of the artists who worked there.
Thus, a decorative typology was born in Palermo that re-elaborated motifs of natural elements such as the vine leaf, the daisy, and the acanthus leaf, and which is commonly defined as Palermitan Baroque.
Among the masters who worked in Palermo between the 16th and 17th centuries, we remember Geronimo, Paolo, and Cono Lazzaro, Andrea Pantaleo, Filippo Passalacqua, Vincenzo Di Marco.
The works of these masters brought prestige to the city of Palermo, so much so that the authoritative ceramic scholar from Caltagirone, Antonino Ragona, wrote: "it was between the end of the 16th century and the first decades of the following century that Palermitan production of the Renaissance type reached its maximum development and imposed itself over that of the rest of the island. The beautiful oval vases dated from these years compete with those of Faenza and Casteldurante."

Francesco Raffa

Tre Erre Ceramiche