from the beginning to the 15th century - the 16th century
from 1550 to 1600 - from 1600 to 1650
the 18th century - from 1778 to the end of the century
the 19th century - from the end of the 19th to the 20th century
Ceramics made its appearance in the Faenza area way back in ancient times. As early as the Neolithic period, first the Greek-Etruscan port of Spina then the port of Classe perhaps helped to stimulate ceramics production in Romagna. After the year 1000, ceramists from Faenza acquired a taste for majolica and oriental decorations. The first references to a potter from Faenza date back to 1142. During the 15th century, Faiences were typified by Zaffera Blue (relief and diluted), Italo-Moresque, Floral-Gothic, Peacock's Feather, Persian Palmette and Alla Porcellana styles. Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, majolica was accompanied by a major decorative evolution. Towards the end of the 15th century, the figurative bust, often female (belle donne) made its appearance. The beginning of the 16th century saw a transition from the 15th century families of themes to the new style of the master ceramists of the early istoriato.
Ceramics in Faenza: the 16th century
Faentine ceramists were also open to new and sophisticated technical achievements. They thus invented grey-blue berettino majolica decorated with themes such as grotesques, trophies of ancient weapons, festoons of leaves and fruit, quarterings, etc.. This was the "bello" or "second istoriato" style. During the period between 1550 and 1580, this decorative style gave superlative results (embossed and modelled shapes) inspired by prototypes in metal (silver and pewter) and the entire surface of the objects was covered with decorations. This was the triumph of the "flowered" style which also made wide use of "Raphaelesque" decorations, an evolution of the previous grotesque motifs.
Ceramics in Faenza: from 1550 to 1600
Just after halfway through the 16th century, majolica ceramists, already producing work at very high levels, invented a new style of product known as Faenza "whiteware" or the "Compendiario" style. This style is characterised by a thick white coating of glaze with the range of colours reduced to a blue and two tones of yellow (light and orange). The result was renewed interest in and emphasis on the shapes of the objects. Alongside the usual shapes there were other more unusual forms, crespine or gadrooned and pierced fruit-bowls, ink-stands, obelisks etc. heavily inspired by silver and bronze works. Decoration was, on the other hand, reduced to small simple figures, putti, coats of arms, airy coronets of leaves and flowers, characterised by rapid execution, barely sketched, abbreviated or compendiato.
Ceramics in Faenza: the XVIIIth century
The eighteenth-century ceramic production is dominated by "conti Ferniani" (workshop active in Faenza for over two centuries). The initial production is characterised by the "Whites of Faenza". Around half of the eighteenth-century, the pottery takes a decorative taste, inspired to Chinese and Japanese products, the so called "cineserie", following importations of porcelains.
The Ferniani pottery also becomes the propelling centre of new techniques, like the one of the little or third fire and the production of earthenware (an English invention: Wedgwood pottery). With the "little fire" technique (600ø) the colour range is enriched with colours which bear low temperatures only, gold in particular. The painter ceramist Filippo Comerio excels here: his subjects (the "Pitocchi", bare landscapes, ruins, small figures and so on) in a brilliant transparent green on a dark manganese sketch give life to the so called "comerio" style.
Ceramics in Faenza: from 1778 to the end of the century
Next to traditional majolica, earthenware has been introduced since 1778: it will be used by talented sculptors, such as Giulio Tomba, Antonio Trentanove, Giambattista Sangiorgi, the Ballanti so called "Graziani" and so on to realise plastic full relief groups of mythological subjects and extremely refined china with relief decorations.
Towards the end of the century and at the beginning of following one, new and delicate decorations appear in sets composed by a great number of pieces, the vine-leaves, the festoon, the acorn, mainly adopted over shapes (smooth plates, vases, tureens) whose simplicity and linearity reveal the change to a neo-classical taste.
Ceramics in Faenza: the XIXth century (1800)
During the XIXth century, both the Ferniani pottery and other minor ones reintroduce with earthenware the traditional "big fire" decoration (920ø) mainly aiming at re-establishing the techniques of the ancient masters and at revaluating the classical themes of 1500 Faenza majolica, in particular, the "raffaellesche" decoration. In the second half of the century, around 1870, thanks to Achille Farina, majolica painter trained as a ceramist at the Ferniani pottery together with a group of skilled decorators, a real painting school on majolica was started: imitating the technique of easel painting, it has left water-colours views and unrivalled portraits.
Ceramics in Faenza: from the end of 1800 to 1900
At the end of the XIXth century the Ferniani pottery and other minor ones closed and the ceramics of Faenza know a serious productive crisis. Among the attempts of reviving it at the beginning of our century, those of the "Fabbriche Riunite di Ceramica" must be mentioned for giving a new start to nineteenth-century potteries, under a single management; in the same years, in addition, a newly founded firm, the pottery of the Minardi brothers, was started.
Faenza workshops at the beginning of the century, heirs of the ancient art of ceramics, provided, however, ground for new experiences and training centres, so that, even though with alternate financial fortunes, the patrimony of the trade and the passion for ceramics has survived from generation to generation in various co-operatives, workshops and ateliers till today; accordingly, the town, its urban reality and culture are, at present, still strongly characterised by the ancient features of this art.