<i>Origine e sviluppi del collezionismo di ceramica graffita ferrarese</i>

Abstract

The dissertation on the origin and development of Ferrara graffito collecting is composed by two basic parts: the first traces the state of research on this theme, not according to a specialistic approach, but aiming at providing an overall view which combines languages and knowledge that hardly ever meet namely: the ceramic analyst’s, the historian’s, the art historian’s, the archaeologist’s, the collector’s, and so on. The examination of the state of the art has meant going through the vast existing bibliography, integrating information from archives, from archaeological or iconographical origin and from collections and has led to the review of the main ceramic products for the domestic use diffused in Ferrara between the XIV and XVII century, and to the analysis of the various handicrafts and their social status and to the examination of the artistic techniques through ancient treatises and recipe books. In the second part of the research the main aim has been to contextualize the graffito ceramics into the history of the international Italian majolica collecting, because up to the second half of the XX century a clear distinction between engobe and enamel was rare, both from the point of view of ceramics collecting and from a linguistic one (in documents and auction catalogues they are often both referred to as majolica). The flows of antiques market, the reasons of taste, the ways of conservation, the type of display, the origin of each piece and the flourishing of collections are the main themes of the research. In particular ascertaining the origins isn’t only aimed at strengthening the authenticity of each object but also suggests cultural exchanges and socio-economic situations. The last section of the work has been devoted to local ceramics collecting namely graffito ceramics, but not exclusively, in the period of its re-discovery between the end of the 1800 and the beginning of 1900, setting a few questions: did the collectors share similar tastes? Did they draw from the same excavations? Did they refer to the same site managers, workmen, junk shops? Were there items from the same origins in different collections? What prompted a private individual to donate his/her collection to a public museum and how was the institution selected? What relationships existed among collectors? After direct scrutiny of the cultural heritage located in the storerooms of the Civic Museum of Schifanoia Palace in Ferrara, of the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza and in private collections in Ferrara, I focused my attention on the archive documents relating to those artifacts including letters, inventories and notes from the Historic municipal archive, the State Archive, the Ariostea Library, the Archives of the Civic Museum of Ancient Art, the MIC Faenza Archive, the private de Pisis archive, Turin, and so on. The research has brought to light: the original manuscript of the essay by the painter de Pisis on his collection of engobe and graffito ceramics of the XV and XVI century, whose surviving items, today housed at the International Museum of Ceramics of Faenza, have been catalogued; some relationships passed among the Ferrara collectors Pasetti, de Pisis, Gardini, Cavalieri and other scholars such as Donini, from Bologna, Federico Argnani and Gaetano Ballardini from Faenza etc.; the role of collector-art dealer of Gregorio Bartolini whose collection of Ferrara engobe and graffito ceramics partially merged with that of Dott. Gualberto Gennari from Bologna; the surviving part of the Cavalieri collection, still private, composed of about 20 vases, plates called “piatti da pompa” in majolica of the XVI and XVII century; some trade routes of Ferrara graffito ceramics towards foreign collections and museums between '800 and '900. The work outlines a mosaic of collecting intentions and relations, made up of and pieced together with careful examination of the details and matching of the individual pieces, yet, at the same time, framing an overall view which, despite the incomplete texture, allows the identification of the general profile of the cultural phenomena that have been examined. The earliest and most significant ceramics collections inasmuch as they included typologies which were considered 'primitives', like graffito or fragments, (Cavalieri, Gardini, de Pisis, Bartolini), left Ferrara, donated or dispersed within the first decades of the previous century, with the commendable exception of the Pasetti collection. However, since 2004 the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara has started a purchasing campaign on the local and international antiques market, of relevant private collections, thus extending to the applied arts that policy of handing back the artistic heritage to the city that brought it to life. In the appendix are listed the first file cards of the ceramics in the Fondazione Carife collection. This study is meant as a contribution towards a greater enhancement of the ceramics in the overall cultural and museum offer of the city of Ferrara.