Frustratingly little is known about this important
exponent of early istohato painting.^8 From the inscrip
tion on the Saint Cecilia plate we know that Nicola
worked, possibly as a visiting master, in the large and
successful Urbino bottega of Guido da Castel Durante,
otherwise known as Guido Durantino.^9 That Nicola was
also Guido's father, a man mentioned in documents as
Nicolo Pellipario, is no longer accepted.^10
Nicola's work is characterized by a delicate and so
phisticated rendering of figures and space in a rich and
varied palette. Because of Nicola's great skill, he was
much admired and sought after by important patrons of
maiolica in the sixteenth century. About 1525, for ex
ample, he produced a splendid credenza, or table service,
for Isabella d'Este.^11 Other credenze attributed to Nicola
include the so-called Correr service of ca. 1517-20 in the
Museo Correr, Venice,^12 a Valenti-Gambara service of
ca. 1518-25 after a plate in the Museo del Castello
Sforzesco, Milan,-^13 a Manzoli credenza of the same gen
eral period after a plate listed above in the Church of
Santo Stefano, Novellara,-^14 and two services dating to
the 1530s: one executed for Duke Federico Gonzaga,
Isabella's son, and another for Federico and his wife,
Margherita Paleologo.^15
The Getty Museum's plate belongs to yet another
service, sometimes referred to as the ladder service, that
was either commissioned by or given to a member of the
Brescian Calini family, whose coat of arms appears in the
central shield.^16 Using Nicola's two signed and dated
works together with the dates ascribed to his table ser
vices, one may place the Calini set roughly in mid-
career, that is, in the mid-1520s, between the earlier,
more delicate, blue-toned style of the Correr service and
the warmer, compositionally more complex painting of
the 1528 Saint Cecilia plate. Two plates in the Correr
service—those depicting Apollo and Marsyas and Solo
mon adoring an idol—display the same temple and deity
sculpture as those depicted on the Getty plate, thereby
associating the two services at least in terms of the
source of these images.^17 However, in both style and
palette the Calini service is closest to the Este-Gonzaga
group. Indeed, the same subject—Apollo and Marsyas—
appears in all three services, with the interpretations on
the Getty Museum and the Este-Gonzaga^18 pieces being
the most closely related.
The classicized, circular temple favored by Nicola
was likely inspired by actual buildings of this type,
such as Donato Bramante's Tempietto. Though sepa
rated by a generation, both Bramante and Nicola were
born in Castel Durante, and on more than one
occasion Nicola seems to have drawn on Bramante's
architectural achievements—such as his celebrated
domed and niched circular structures—for his own archi
tectural inventions.^19
In addition to Apollo and Marsyas, Nicola's plate
presents the contest between Apollo and Pan. According
to the ancient legend, Pan, god of woodlands and player
of the syrinx, challenged Apollo, god of music and mas
ter of the lyre, to a test of musical skill in which Apollo
was judged the winner. This competition represents, in
essence, the struggle between wildness and carnal desire,
represented by Pan, and wisdom and sophistication, rep
resented by Apollo. In the second scene, Athena, shown
on the far left of the plate, made a flute that she played
beside a stream. (Here, Athena plays a bagpipe, which is
not an unusual substitution.)^20 Watching her reflected
image in the water, she saw her face become blue and her
cheeks swollen, so she threw down the instrument and
laid a curse on anyone who picked it up. Marsyas stum
bled on the pipes, which, inspired by the memory of
Athena's music, made beautiful sounds. He then invited
Apollo to a contest. The sly Apollo challenged Marsyas
to play his instrument upside down, knowing that this
could be done with the lyre but not with the pipes. The
Muses declared the winner to be Apollo, who took cruel
revenge by flaying Marsyas alive. The figures of Athena
and Pan on this plate (figs. 25B —c) are adapted from
illustrations to the 1497 Venetian edition of Ovid's
Metamorphoses.^11 Curiously, the two scenes are some
what conflated on the plate since Pan, rather than
Marsyas, is shown retrieving Athena's instrument.
Including the Museum's plate, there are eleven
known works from the Calini service. Their subjects are
Apollo and Pan (London, British Museum inv. MLA 1855 ,146 Armorial Dish with the Flaying of Marsyas