Description
Not many production centers in Italy have a centuries-old ceramic tradition comparable to that of Montelupo Fiorentino and, above all, few ceramic classes can boast such a pervasive presence on the Tyrrhenian and Mediterranean markets during the modern age as Montelupo majolica. The studies of the last decades have made it possible to know in detail the decorative developments of the production and the majolica of Montelupo, thanks to the careful stylistic analysis of the painted motifs, now represents an essential fossil guide for the dating of archaeological contexts from the XNUMXth to the XNUMXth century . The analysis of formal paradigms, on the other hand, remained in the background of the research. With this book the author intends to fill this gap by building a systematic, morphological and dimensional typology of Montelupo majolica, based on a structured method. From the study of the forms in relation to the decorative motifs and the contexts of discovery derive detailed information of a chronological nature for the individual types, and this work, in addition to allowing to outline the morphological evolution of Montelupo production in the long term, is configured as one fundamental tool for the classification of excavated finds or artifacts present in public and private collections. The last part also focuses on the significance of Montelupo majolica as an indicator of socio-economic status in archaeological contexts. The comparison between written sources, socially well-connoted contexts and, above all, dimensional and qualitative characteristics of the artifacts suggests a new interpretation of these important indicators, whose informative weight has often been neglected in the archaeological literature.
An article by Hugo Blake on SHA, volume 50, number 2, summer 2017, pp. 11-14, where the contents of the volume are presented: Summer 2017 SHA Newsletter, Hugo Blake, pp. 11-14, in pdf format
In collaboration with SAMI, Società degli Archeologi Medievisti Italiani
