- chapter 53: The meanings of bucchero –
NOTES1 For example, Ridgway 2005, 612.
2 Camporeale 2000: 405–406. F. Cortier-Angeli (in Jucker 1991: 294, n. 1) quotes a recipe
from Artusi’s famous nineteenth-century cookbook, La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene
(recipe no. 659). “...as the 17th century was ending and at the beginning of the 18th, in
imitation of [Spanish] taste, perfumes and odorous essences came into great fashion. Among
the odours, none was so exciting as bucchero, the use of which became so widespread that
even druggists and confectioners would stick some into pastilles and victuals. Whence was
this famous odour extracted and what was it like? Hark and wonder how extravagant may
tastes and men be: it was the dust of crockery fragments and its perfume resembled that
exhaled by sun-beaten earth under summer rain; the smell of earth, in short, produced by
certain vases called buccheri, thin and fragile, unvarnished [unglazed], the name of which was
perhaps given to dark-red color; but the most appreciated were of shiny black. These vases
had been brought to Europe from South America fi rst by the Portuguese and were used for
drinking and for boiling perfumes and odorous waters, their rubble being then utilized in the
above-said manner.”
3 Readers who wish to explore this aspect of Etruscology should consult summaries in
Perkins 2007, Camporeale 2000 and Martelli 1994. These sources also provide excellent
bibliographies on what has become a vibrant but unwieldy and voluminous topic.
4 Colonna 1968: 268, no. 5; 269, fi g. 3. Recent studies (e.g. Palmieri 2001) show that Veii and
Tarquinia may not have been far behind Caere in this early production.
5 Ramage 1970: 17–18; Gran Aymerich 1982: 42, nos 11–12. Remains of gilding appear on
two chalice caryatids circa 620–600 bc from Vulci, now in the Antikensammlungen, Munich
(inv. 2364–2365), Cristofani and Martelli 1983: 286, no. 117; Gran Aymerich 1995: 65, pl.
- For an unsubstantiated mention of gold leaf on a bucchero vessel, see Notizie degli Scavi
1894: 351–354.
6 Dohan 1942, 3–4.
7 Gran Aymerich 1995; Santamaria and Artizzu 2003.
8 Painted bucchero sottile kantharos: Jucker 1991: 203, no. 268. Painted bucchero pesante
Nikosthenic amphoras: Gran Aymerich 1982: 81–83, pl. 39, 1–6. Martelli 1994, 763
mentions an unpublished painted bucchero vase from the Grand Tumulus at Monte dell’Oro,
Cerveteri. See also, New York, Metropolitan Museum acc. no. 74.4.26, a painted bucchero
pesante chalice: De Puma, forthcoming, 2013 Fig. 4.65. During the late nineteenth century
some authentic bucchero vases were painted and varnished, one assumes to enhance their
appeal and market value.
I realize that the use of terms like bucchero sottile and pesante is controversial because it suggests
a simple division of what is certainly a far more complex and fl uid situation. However, I have
decided to use them in a general way to suggest an evolution in bucchero production that,
I think, bears some validity. Only when one attempts to apply very specifi c chronological
divisions to this material does one tread on thin ice. For more on this problem, see Berkin
2003: 5.
9 Rasmussen 1979: 9, where this tomb is dated circa 700–675 bc.
10 Rasmussen 1979: 10–11, where this tomb is dated ca. 700–650 bc.
11 Sciacca and Di Blasi 2003. Sciacca dates the tomb to ca. 660–650 bc. See also, Riva 2010:
166–171.
12 Rasmussen 1979: 12–14, probably circa 650 bc.
13 Maria Antonietta Rizzo, “Le tombe orientalizzanti di San Paolo” in Moretti Sgubini (ed.)
(2001), Veio, Cerveteri, Vulci. Città d’Etruria a confronto, Rome: “L’ERMA” di Bretschneider,
163–176.
14 Colonna 1968: 268–271.