12 Cipriano Piccolpasso. Detail of folio 57V from Li tie libri dell'arte del
vasaio (1557). London, Victoria and Albert Museum. Ceramic painters
copy images from the paper tacked to the wall behind them onto the
bowls and jugs that they hold on their knees.
1 3 Pricked cartoon (backlit view). Castelli, late seventeenth to early eigh
teenth century. Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute, Gentili/Barnabei
Archive, cat. no. 170. An unidentified engraving was used to transfer
the image onto a piece of maiolica by means of pricking.
In addition to drawing on sources in the visual arts,
maiolica painters also used the works of contemporary
literary figures to ornament their wares. The inscriptions
and mottoes often written on decorative banderoles
painted across the front of vases, plates, and jugs were
usually recordings of popular wisdom that frequently
emphasized a clever turn of phrase. Famous contempo
rary writers were sometimes engaged to invent these wit
ticisms, causing Angelo Poliziano to complain in 1490 of
those who wasted his time by employing him to com
pose "un motto... o un verso... o una impresa... pei
i cocci di casa" (a motto... verse ... or device... for
household pots).^18 Though he lamented such attempts to
display erudition, wit, and status by emblazoning even
household crockery with witty mottoes and heraldic
arms, the demand for the latest fashion and cleverest
maxim served only to increase competition among work
shops. This competition existed in the area of technique,
pictorial rendering, and style, thereby helping to promote
innovations in the medium.
In contrast to these humanistic innovations in deco
ration, pottery shapes continued to reflect late medieval
forms well into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.Introduction 9