History of Montelupo Ceramics

The development of productivity and technology in Montelupo attracted, in the course of the fifteenth century, important customers; many noble Florentine families (Medici, Stozzi, Macchiavelli, Canigiani, Frescobaldi, Pucci, etc.) direct their custom towards the local furnaces or receive as gifts majolica from Montelupo (even Lorenzo the Magnificent possessed “fine majolica” from Montelupo).

The golden age of Montelupo can be placed within the period from 1450 to about 1530. During this time, approximately in the 1480’s, in this small town in the Arno valley, there is a move to develop and elaborate the decorative styles of the Renaissance, sometimes drawing on the vast range of the Spanish majolica in the tradition of the Arabic style (Manises).

 

The Renaissance designs partly resemble the decorative styles and themes of the period, both local and from other centres of Italian production, and partly they are presenting themselves as totally original and particular to this one centre in the Valdarno.

The majolica of Montelupo thus reaches the point of its greatest expansion commercially, making itself widespread, both around the Mediterranean (Greece, Egypt, Morocco, Spain and France), and along the shipping lanes of the Atlantic (Southern England and Holland).