Medieval And Early Modern Pottery 395
2 Regional Production between the Fifteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries
Clearer indicators of the production of glazed ceramics appear in the early
modern period. In the city of Oristano, an area for ceramicists (burgu de sos
congiulargios) is reported in written sources by the late fifteenth century.22 But,
it is only in the late sixteenth century that large quantities of lead-glazed ce-
ramic, slipware, or pottery with Oristano graffiti appear in the archaeological
record in regional territories, both urban and rural.23 Pottery from Oristano is
characterized by red ceramic bodies and the use of slip or a double glaze: the
first layer, of highly depurated, chaolitic white clay serves as a light base on
which to impose graffito or painted decoration; the second lead glaze, known
as “vetrina,” is made of an acidic mixture enriched with lead oxide, and serves
to waterproof the object and protect the decoration. The shapes are mostly
those of tableware (plates, bowls, jugs) or vessels for storing or transporting
liquids (pitchers, flasks). The decorations are of graffito or painted with white
slip over a red base (Fig. 15.4).24
Given the absence of corresponding written sources it is not easy to iden-
tify the precise channels through which slip technique came to be introduced
to the island; from a stylistic point of view, we may underscore that graffito
decoration—either monochrome or enhanced by touches of color into the
glaze—seems to have resulted in a decorative repertoire similar to that of
southern France,25 just as the use of slip in the sixteenth century found precise
technical parallels in Provence.
22 Paolo Maninchedda, ed., Il condaghe di Santa Chiara: il manoscritto 1B del Monastero di
Santa Chiara di Oristano (Oristano, 1987), p. 43.
23 What remains unclear, however, is the problem of recognizing early ceramics from
Oristano, since no glazed items securely attributable to the area have been identified in
fifteenth-century contexts.
24 For a history of Oristano productions, see Marini and Ferru, Congiolargios. For an anal-
ysis based on material sources, see Maria Francesca Porcella and Maria Laura Ferru,
“La produzione graffita e a slip ware in Sardegna nel XVI–XVII secolo da testimonianze
materiali,” in Dalla maiolica arcaica alla maiolica del primo Rinascimento (Albisola, 1991),
pp. 171–184; and Donatella Salvi, “La produzione ceramica in Sardegna nell’età moder-
na attraverso le testimonianze archeologiche,” in Corporazioni, Gremi e artigianato tra
Sardegna, Spagna e Italia nel medioevo e nell’età moderna (XIV–XIX secolo), ed. Antonello
Mattone (Cagliari, 2000), pp. 451–465.
25 In the provincial area, on the other hand, Ligurian ceramicists—particularly ones from
Savona—were active and responsible for the change towards Renaissance forms in locally
produced glazed pottery; see Amouric Henri, Horry Alban, and Vayssettes Jean-Louis, “Le