398 Biccone
while others contain letters arranged in cruciform fashion, or simply cruciform
elements. Seven different signs identifying as many potters have been distin-
guished in all the material assessed up until now (Pl. 15.2). These marks, in fact,
may have served to identify ownership of the forms fired in a single kiln.
From an initial typological analysis, open forms—plates and bowls and
more rarely cups with a hemispheric profile and a strap handle—seem to
prevail.32 The plates have a rim that flows into a semicircular concavity and a
flat base with traces made by an intermittent rope-operated lathe. The bowls
come in at least three distinct profiles, and in different sizes. Larger bowls have
a vertical rim, a conical cavity, and a disk-shaped bottom. Smaller bowls are rim-
less with flared sides and a pronounced step that distinguishes the base from the
inner cavity. The base is disk-shaped, with an indent in the bottom; sometimes
multi-lobed ear-shaped handles are attached to the border (Fig. 15.5). Likewise,
there are bowls with conical sides and an external hull. Open forms are glazed
solely on the inner surface and on the edge. Closed forms consist predomi-
nantly of jugs typical of the period: a triple-lobed rim, ovoid body, disc-shaped
base, and either a flat or suction-cup base (Pl. 15.3). The handle is located on
the broadest point of the vessel, beneath the rim. In jugs, the glaze extends to
both sides of the surface, but is very thin on the interior. Little pots or small al-
barelli appear less often, and so far have been documented only with a turquoise
coating. The jugs are either monochrome white or turquoise, or they have deco-
rations painted in blue, green, brown, and lemon yellow on a white background
(Fig. 15.7a). The bowls can be either monochrome turquoise or painted in poly-
chrome over a white glaze. Decorative motifs vary between open and closed
forms and parallels exist in central Italy, particularly in upper Latium and the
region of Orvieto, where a monticelli and millerighe motifs have been widely
documented (Fig. 15.6).33 Among closed forms, parallel polychrome bands
inside a central medallion are very common.34 The orange spiral motif originat-
ing in Montelupo likewise finds imitations in the province of Viterbo (Fig. 15.7b).35
32 The last of these forms was identified by Giulia Nieddu in the infill of the hypogeal
chamber.
33 Marco Ricci, “Maiolica di età rinascimentale e moderna,” in Il giardino del Conservatorio
di S. Caterina della Rosa 3. Archeologia urbana a Roma: il progetto della Crypta Balbi
(Florence, 1985), pp. 374–389; Tamara Pratilli and Flora Scaia, “La ceramica di Via di
Vallepiatta, Viterbo,” in Le ceramiche di Roma e del Lazio in età medievale e moderna, La ce-
ramica dipinta in rosso. I contesti laziali a confronto con altre realtà italiane, ed. Elisabetta
De Miniciis (Rome, 2009), pp. 265–272.
34 Pratilli and Scaia, “La ceramica di Via di Vallepiatta,” p. 267, tab. VI.8.
35 Ibid., Fig. 6.1.