Committenza roveresca e committenza delle

Committenza roveresca e committenza delle botteghe maiolicarie del Ducato di Urbino
nell’epoca roveresca
Timothy Wilson
The potters of the Duchy of Urbino in the High Renaissance elevated their product to a level at
which princes and princesses took an active interest in its design and used it for gift-giving at the
highest social and diplomatic level. Such was the celebrity of sixteenth-century Urbino
maiolica that, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, “Urbino ware” dominated the
idea of Renaissance maiolica in the minds of collectors across Europe. Appreciation of
Urbino istoriato was bolstered by the belief that Raphael and other famous artists had not
only designed but actually painted it: for generations of English collectors, “Raphael ware”
became the common term used for all istoriato maiolica1. This essay examines the evidence
that in some degree this lasting success was due to direct support from the Della Rovere dukes
and duchesses.
In the 1480s and 1490s Pesaro was producing the finest maiolica in the region and perhaps
the most sophisticated in Italy. Terra da Pesero was already recognizable to an inventory
clerk at Lorenzo de’ Medici’s villa at Poggio a Caiano in 14802. It was probably Pesaro
potters who won the commission for a table service for Matthias Corvinus King of Hungary
and his wife Beatrice d’Aragona3, and in 1494 a Pesaro workshop, perhaps that of the Fedeli,
made pavement tiles with arms and imprese for Marquess Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua and
his wife Isabella d’Este4. Around 1500-1510 Pesaro ceded pre-eminence to Castel Durante
and Urbino5. Urbino itself was already a centre of fine maiolica production by 1501, when
the Urbino potter Francesco Garducci was commissioned by Cardinal Ludovico Podocatario,
secretary to Pope Alexander VI, to make an ambitious service of 91 pieces that were to be
“beautiful and well-painted and of good colours with the arms of the said cardinal and other
paintings to earn the praise and approval of one skilled in the art”6.
The most spectacular example of the virtuosity achieved by Castel Durante pottery in the
early sixteenth century is the bowl now in the Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York (fig. 1). It has the Della Rovere arms beneath the papal crossed
keys and tiara, for Pope Julius II. Beneath is a shield of arms of Manzoli of Bologna; it is
likely that the bowl was a gift to the Pope from Giorgio Manzoli, whom Julius had appointed
to the Bolognese senate after the coup of 1506, which expelled the Bentivoglio from that
city7. The bowl is dated 12 September 1508 and marked as made in Castel Durante by Zouâ
Maria vrô, presumably denoting a potter (vasaro) named Giovanni Maria. Though archival
research has not yet conclusively identified Giovanni Maria8, the artist who decorated this
bowl produced one of the great masterpieces of Renaissance maiolica. One may, however,
wonder why Manzoli - if indeed he was the originator of the commission - placed the order in
Castel Durante, rather than Faenza, which is closer to and within the artistic ambit of
1
John Evelyn in 1650 described having seen “many Vasas designed by Raphael”; in 1678 Cesare Malvasia
provoked an acrimonious debate by describing Raphael as boccalaio urbinate in his book Felsina Pittrice. See
Norman 1976, pp. 19-28; Wilson 1996, pp. XVII-XVIII.
2
Cora 1973, I, p. 419; Spallanzani 1983; Berardi 1984, p. 33.
3
Bettini 1997; Wilson 1999, p. 6, with further references.
4
Gardelli 1993, pp. 95-9; Mallet 1997, pp. 260-2.
5
For possible reasons for the decline, see Berardi 1984, pp. 35-6.
6
Rossi 1889; Wilson 2003B, pp. 152-3.
7
Rasmussen 1989, no. 62,
8
See Negroni 1985, p. 17; Wilson 1993, p. 132, on Giovanni Maria di Mariano of Urbino. Balzani and Regni
2003 suggest Giovanni Maria Perusini of Castel Durante.
Bologna. The exact circumstances are unknown, but one wonders if the Pope’s nephew
Francesco Maria Della Rovere, who had succeeded his uncle Guidubaldo da Montefeltro as
Duke of Urbino in April 1508, and travelled to Bologna to be invested as Captain-general of
the Papal armies in San Petronio on 4 October, might have had a role in the matter.
Francesco Maria was first and foremost a soldier and spent much of his reign away from
Urbino on military duties. The Dizionario bigrafico degli italiani comments that he non
prosegue il mecenatismo culturale montefeltresco, né s’intende gran che d’arte. There is
little tangible evidence that he himself took much interest in maiolica, and no Urbino or
Castel Durante istoriato maiolica survives with his arms9, but in the thirty years of his reign
the maiolica industry in three towns of the Duchy - Urbino, Castel Durante, and Gubbio achieved unequalled artistic heights.
The man who more than anyone else established the “Urbino manner” of istoriato was
Nicola di Gabriele Sbraghe, who signed “Nicola da Urbino”. It was to Nicola that Eleanora
Gonzaga Duchess of Urbino turned when she decided to commission an example of the best
Urbino production. On 15 November 1524, Eleanora wrote from Pesaro to her mother,
Isabella d’Este in Mantua: Pensando io di volere visitare V. Ex.tia cum qualche cosa de
quelle che dano questi paesi, et chi gli potessero piacere a questi tempi non trovando cosa
che mi paresse al proposito: Ho facto fare una credenza de vasi di terra, Quale la mando a v
.Ex.tia per Baptista mio Credentiero pnte exibitore, per havere li maestri de questo nostro
paese qualche nome di lavorar bene, et se piacerà alla ex.tia v. mi sera di contento, et lei se
ne fara servire a Porto per essere cosa da villa accettando el Bono animo mio in cambio de
quanto vorrei chella fusse..10. At least twenty-two beautiful pieces from this service survive
in collections round the world [CAT. NOS XX,YY]. Most have Ovidian or other classical
subjects, appropriate for a cosa da villa, or scenes after Raphael-school engravings, but one
(in the Louvre11) has an Old Testament subject after Raphael’s Vatican Logge; Nicola may
have owed his knowledge of this composition to Giulio Romano, who passed through Urbino
on his way from Rome to Mantua in autumn 152412.
About 1533, another armorial set was made, probably also in Nicola’s workshop, for
Isabella’s son Federico Duke of Mantua and his wife Margherita Paleologo13[CAT. NO. ZZ].
One might have guessed this to have been a gift from his sister the Duchess of Urbino; but a
letter written from Pesaro in August 1530 by Giovan Francesco Calandra to Federico’s
secretary shows that the secretary at that time was interested in prices in a way that suggests
that Federico himself was intending to place an order from Mantua: Io sono stato in Urbino et
ho visto vasi veramente excellentissimi et dipinti a paesi, fabule et istorie, sopra tutta bellezza
a li ochij mei e fatoli intendere de la Credenza ne avete scritto. La risposta è stata che non
pono dirmi el pretio, se non sanno la qualità e quantità... perchè valiono assai et poco
secondo la molta e poca manifattura, ma non sì li ho detto perchè io voglia dita Credenza,
9
For the alternative view, that Francesco Maria I was actively involved in maiolica, see the eloquent studies by
Dr Cioci: Cioci 1987; Cioci 1997; Cioci 2002, pp. 86-8.
10
Palvarini Gobio Casali 1987, pp. 211-2.
11
Giacomotti 1974, no. 819; see Mallet 1981, p 166.
12
Wilson in Ausenda 2000, pp. 182-4; Casati Migliorini 2003, pp. 42-5.
13
There are four pieces by Nicola or his workshop with the arms of Gonzaga impaling Paleologo (Mallet in
Chambers and Martineau 1981, nos, 194, 195; Norman 1976, no. C92; one in the Hermitage F3030); three with
Paleologo alone (Piatkiewicz-Dereniowa 1975, no. 22; Ivanova 2003, no. 36; and Liverani 1939, p. 14); and
two with Federico’s Olympus impresa (Mallet in Chambers and Martineau 1981, no. 197; Liverani 1939, p. 13).
All perhaps formed part of the same commission, as may one, with the impaled arms, by Xanto dated 1533
(Mallet in Chambers and Martineau 1981, no. 196).
ma s’io avesse avuto 25 o trenta scudi comperava tanta maiolica et me ne veniva trovarvi,
che so che vi saria piaciuto, et cossì al nostro Illo S. Duca14.
Other istoriato table services were made in Urbino in the 1520s and 1530s for rich and
important individuals through Italy. Examples are services by Nicola for a member of the
Calini family of Brescia15 and for Valente Valenti Gonzaga of Mantua around 152516;
services by Francesco Xanto Avelli for a member of the Pucci family of Florence in 153217
and for the Venetian Jacopo Pesaro, Bishop of Paphos, in 153518; and a service by another
painter for Francesco Sforza II, Duke of Milan, around 1530-3519. There is no proof whether
Francesco Maria took an active part in any of these commissions, or whether any of them
were official or diplomatic gifts.
Duchess Eleanora may have been more actively involved in the promotion of this local
industry, and in its diplomatic potential, than her husband. In a letter written to her from the
papal court in Viterbo, in 1528, soon after the Sack of Rome, the Urbino ducal agent
Giovanmaria Della Porta reported that he had asked Pope Clement VII’s steward why the
Pope did not eat off piatti di terra... dipinti a figure, and the reply had been that he used such
plates only when dining with cardinals. Della Porta went on to suggest to the Duchess that it
would be advantageous to send a service of pottery quickly to the Pope: non potriano venire
più a tempo, essendo quasi alla fin d’una che gli venne sì fatta a Faenza... presto, presto,
che’l tempo ne serve20.
In 1535 Della Porta wrote again, this time to Francesco Maria’s son Guidubaldo, asking for
help in meeting the desire of an unnamed count in Rome for una Credenza con Figure al
modo che si fano in Urbino21.
In the light of documents like this, it seems possible, although no specific documentation has
yet been found, that the istoriato services bearing the arms of two of the most influential
people at the French court, Cardinal Duprat, Chancellor of France, and Anne de
Montmorency, Grand Maître of France [CAT. NO. YY], both made in the workshop of Guido
Durantino in 1535, were in some degree diplomatic gifts, whether from Francesco Maria or
from someone else22.
In 1538 Francesco Maria I died and Guidubaldo II succeeded to the Duchy. There is evidence
that, though his own preferred residence was Pesaro23, he took a more active role in
promoting the Urbino maiolica industry than his father had. It seems that Guido Durantino (d.
1576) and his son Orazio Fontana (d. 1571) were the principal beneficaries of ducal
patronage. Around 1607 Bernardino Baldi, in his Encomio della Patria addressed to
14
Campori in Vanzolini 1879, II, p. 215; Mallet 1981, p. 167.
Most recently studied by Hess 2002, no. 25.
16
Palvarini Gobio Casali 1989-90; Wilson in Ausenda 2000, no. 193.
17
Triolo 1988; Triolo 1992; Cioci 1997; Spallanzani 1999.
18
Triolo 1996, pp. 352-60; Wilson 1996, pp. 198-201.
19
A plate with the arms of Francesco Sforza, probably by the “Milan Marsyas painter”, is in
Kunstindustrimuseet, Copenhagen (Rackham 1928, tav. IVD); another was sold at Semenzato, Florence, 19
December 2002, lot 172.
20
Spallanzani 1994, p. 129; Mallet and Dreier 1998, pp. 36-7.
21
Mallet and Dreier 1998, p. 37.
22
Crépin-Leblond and Ennès 1995, pp. 56-7; compare Spallanzani 1980.
23
It is probably no coincidence that the Pesaro maiolica industry was reinvigorated, with istoriato production
flourishing in the workshop of Girolamo dalle Gabicce, around the time of Guidubaldo’s accession (Bonali and
Gresta 1987).
15
Guidubaldo’s son Francesco Maria II, noted the unprecedented prestige of the products of
Orazio’s workshop: Nell'arti men nobili, nobilissimo in quella del far Vasi di terra cotta e
porcellane fù Horatio Fontana; il quale si portò di maniera ne tempi di Guidobaldo Padre della
Altezza Vostra, che le Credenze sue erano del detto Principe, come cosa rara, mandate in dono
a gran Signori, al Rè di Spagna, & all Imperatore medesimo24. Orazio Fontana was already a
skilled maiolica artist by 1541, the date of the earliest of a series of plates bearing his
monogram ORATIO25; one of these, formerly in Berlin but destroyed in World War II, bore
the date 1542 and an inscription stating that it had been made in the workshop of Guido
Durantino; about the same time father and son seem to have adopted the surname
“Fontana”26. From the first marked piece bearing the name of Guido’s workshop (a plate in
the Bargello dated 1528, painted by Nicola da Urbino) to the 1560s, the Fontana family
workshop produced many fine istoriato services, some of them armorial. Sixteen plates have
the arms of Guidubaldo and inscriptions indicating that they were presented by him to Andrea
Ghetti da Volterra, an Augustinian frate and preacher (fig. 2). Although Ghetti enjoyed some
celebrity, the motive for this exceptional gift has not been discovered. The service is undated
but Guidubaldo’s arms are surrounded by the Order of the Golden Fleece, to which he was
appointed in 1559; it was probably painted in the Fontana workshop shortly after this date27.
In the second (1568) edition of his Vite, Vasari relates how the Venetian-born painter Bartista
Franco was summoned to Urbino by Guidubaldo and painted the vault of Urbino Cathedral,
but the results were deemed disppointing: La qual cosa conoscendo quel Duca, e pensando
che i suoi disegni, messi in opera da coloro che lavoravano eccellentemente vasi di terra a
Castel Durante, i quali si erano molto serviti delle stampe di Raffaello da Urbino e di quelle
d’altri valentuomini, riuscirebbono benissimo, fece fare a Battista infiniti disegni, che, messi
in opera in quella sorte di terra gentilissima sopra tutte l’altre d’Italia, riuscirono cosa rara.
Onde ne furono fatti tanti e di tante sorte vasi, quanti sarebbono bastati e stati orrevoli in
una credenza reale; e le pitture che in essi furono fatte non sarebbono state migliori quando
fussero state fatte a olio da eccellentissimi maestri. Di questi vasi adunque... mandò il detto
duca Guidobaldo una credenza doppia a Carlo Quinto imperadore, et una al cardinal
Farnese, fratello della signora Vettoria sua consorte28. Guidubaldo married Vittoria Farnese
in 1548; Franco’s drawings of Trojan War scenes, and the first credenze made from them,
were probably made about that time. Although Vasari implies the Duke’s credenze were
made at Castel Durante, Clifford and Mallet have provided arguments instead that they were
made in Urbino in the Fontana workshop, possibly painted by Guido’s nephew Camillo
Gatti29[CAT. NO. ZZ].
It was not only the Ducal family but civic authorities who used their local speciality for
diplomatic purposes. In 1556-7 the French Cardinal de Tournon stayed in Castel Durante and
the town authorities offered him un qualche donativo onorifico fin dove potranno giungere le
finanze del Comune prendendosi a norma il già fatto in altra e simile occasione pel cardinal
d’Urbino (the Duke’s brother Cardinal Giulio Della Rovere); this took the form of a maiolica
24
Baldi 1706, pp. 130-131. This work is dated 1607 by Zaccagnini 1902, pp. 55-7.
Mallet 1987 is a thorough account of work attributable to the workshop of Guido. An unpublished dish with
the Last Supper and Orazio’s monogram is in the Museum of Applied Arts, Prague, 89.954.
26
If correctly recorded by Scatassa 1908, p. 168, a document records the name Oratio Fontana in 1541.
27
Wilson 2002, pp. 125-31, lists and discusses the service.
28
Vasari 1966-87, V, p. 465.
29
Clifford and Mallet 1976; Lessmann 1976; Ravanelli Guidotti 1983; Mallet 1987, pp. 292-4; Nepoti 1999.
25
vase, no doubt from a Castel Durante workshop, with military subjects, grotesque ornament,
and heraldic devices30.
Vasari tells how around 1560 Guidubaldo again commissioned a series of drawings for a
prestigious credenza, this time from Taddeo Zuccaro; the first credenza made from them was
sent in 1562 to Spain as a gift to King Philip II, but the drawings were copied and re-used in
Urbino maiolica workshops. On 15 January 1563 Annibale Caro wrote from Rome to
Duchess Vittoria asking for help in retrieving them for the artist: Il signor duca suo consorte
fece fare qui molti disegni di varie istoriette per dipingere una credenza di maioliche in Urbino.
La quale e stata finita, e gli disegni sono restati in mano di quei maestri, i quali ordinariamente
non gli hanno ad avere31.
Around 1560 white-ground grotesque decoration superseded istoriato as the fashionable
mode of decorating the grandest maiolica services. There is evidence that the first services
decorated with white-ground grotesques were made by or under the direction of Orazio
Fontana32. Orazio, who was evidently an effective businessman, separated his affairs from his
father Guido Durantino's in 156533; how far he was active independently before that date is
uncertain. In 1564-65 Orazio was in Turin in the service of the Duke of Savoy, where he had the
title of capo mastro de vasari de S. Alt. Two surviving pieces of a grandiose service with the
arms of Inigo d’Avalos, Archbishop of Turin, were probably made about this time34. So too,
perhaps, was the superb service with scenes from the romance Amadis of Gaul and Spanish
inscriptions, doubtless made for King Philip II or a grandee of Spain35. [CAT. NO. ZZ]
Explicit testimony of the primacy of Orazio in prestige comissions is a letter written in March
1567 by Felice Tiranni, Archbishop of Urbino, to his patron Cardinal Giulio Della Rovere,
brother of Guidubaldo: Arivato ad Urbino ordinai a. mo Horatio Vasaro la credenza che .V.S.
Illma. et Rma. mi comando per Monig’ Illmo. Farnese et perche vi seranno tanti vasi lavorati
alla grotesca oltra li bianchi quanto quella vederà per l’inclusa lista non ho potuto fare
amen di trentasei scudi che se io non me inganno a quello che fa con’ altri ci tratta assai
beni’ et tutti li pezzi bianchi haveranno nel riverso d’el fondo un’armetta di Farnese et mi
rendo certo che sarà credenza che piacerà e promettemi di darla finita in poco piu d’Un
Mese... che finita che sarà la faro puoi bene incassare dal detto Horatio come e necessario
perche vada ben conservata et l’inviaro a Roma secondo l’ordine che piacerà a lei di
darmi...36 The Lista delli vasi bianchi con l’arme al reverso al fondo numbers 201 pieces,
alongside the following pieces Lavorati alla Grotesca: Un Renfrescatoro, Un Bacile et
Bocale, Quattro taze dal Piede alto, Un Bacile da Barbiere con la Bronzetta, Due Saliere. It
seems possible, though not certain, that the bowl in Fig. 3, which has the Farnese arms
30
Liburdi 1918, p. 59; Piccolpasso 1980, I, p. xxiii. I have not consulted the original documents, but it seems
likely that this maiolica vase was the gift resolved upon by the city council in September 1556. It was on this
occasion that Cipriano Piccolpasso of Castel Durante compiled at the request of the Cardinal his Tre Libri
dell’Arte del Vasaio.
31
Caro 1957-61, III, p. 147; on the “Spanish service” see Gere 1963; Bojani 1993; Poole 1995, pp. 378-81;
Wilson 1996, pp. 371-83; and Vossilla in this volume.
32
Wilson 1996, pp. 368-9 is a more detailed account of these issues.
33
Rossi 1889.
34
Campori in Vanzolini 1879, II, p. 171; the two dishes are (a) oval dish in a private collection (Robinson 1863,
no. 5263; V&A negative 3388) ; (b) round basin in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Rackham 1940, no. 845).
35
Wilson 1987, no. 90; Watson 2001, no. 19; the oval dishes from this set in The Metropolitan Museum of Art
resemble the one from the D’Avalos service cited above.
36
Pesaro, Biblioteca Oliveriana, 375, vol. 6 (Monumenti rovereschi VI), pp. 57-8; transcript by the author;
published in English translation by Dennistoun 1909, III, p. 474.
beneath a Cardinal’s hat on the reverse, formed part of this commission for the powerful
Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, brother of Duchess Vittoria37.
Our information on the collections formed by the Della Rovere dukes and duchesses
themselves is disappointingly meagre. The researches of Marco Spallanzani have refuted the
old idea that that much of the superb Urbino maiolica in the Bargello was part of the Urbino
ducal collections transferred to Florence when the male Della Rovere line came to an end in
163138; nor has any proof been found for the story that the pharmacy jars at Loreto were gifts
to the Santa Casa from Guidubaldo or from his brother Cardinal Giulio39. The Urbino ducal
inventories of 1596 and 1609 give the impression of consisting mainly of late 16th-century
pieces, rather than of a family collection built up over the entire century40; they include
numerous sculptural objects characteristic of Urbino production around 1600, such as un
calamaro con un Bacco grande a sedere in su la botte con doi figure, dipinto e dorato, which
sounds similar to an object acquired recently for the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche41. Some
indication of the splendour of what Guidubaldo and his son Francesco Maria II might have
owned is a pair of enormous candlesticks in the Hermitage; one (Fig. 4) has Guidobaldo’s
impresa, the Mete of the Circus Maximus. Could this have been one of the quattro candelieri
da torce inventoried in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino in 159642?
Francesco Maria II also used maiolica for diplomatic gifts. Folowing a visit from Wilhelm V
Duke of Bavaria in 1585, Francesco Maria sent him some maiolica. An agent in Munich
wrote that I vasi di terra ch’ella mandò quà piacciono tanto al Duca et alla Duchessa che
homai il numero non sodisfa all’appetito loro; they expressed the wish to have more, though
stipulating, in good Counter-Reformation fashion, che sieno avertiti i Pittori a non porvi cosa
alcuna che tenga del dishonesto43. A second consignment was sent to Munich in 1587. A
ewer in the Victoria & Albert Museum and a flower vase still in Munich (fig. 6?), both
painted with grotesques and the arms of Bavaria, were perhaps part of one of these gifts44.
In examining the documentary evidence for involvement of the Della Rovere family in the
maiolica industry, it is notable how often the names of the Duchesses occur. An indication of
the role which the women of the family may have played in promoting the Urbino maiolia
industry is to be found in documents recently published by Monsignor Negroni45. These
record two orders, in 1593 and 1599, on behalf of the Principessa di Bisignano, of maiolica as
gifts for the wife of the Viceroy of Naples; these orders were placed with Francesco
Patanazzi. The Principessa di Bisignano is probably Isabella Della Rovere, daughter of
Guidubaldo II and Vittoria Farnese. The Viceroy of Naples in 1593 was Juan de Zuñiga,
Count of Miranda. The plate in fig. 5, which bears the arms of Zuñiga and is Patanazzian in
style, may have formed part of this gift46.
37
Kube 1976, no. 85; Ivanova 2003, no. 64. Unless the bowl is the bacile listed, it does not seem to correspond
exactly with the document.
38
Spallanzani 1979 and 1994.
39
Grimaldi in Colapinto et al. 1994, p. 23.
40
Sangiorgi 1976, especially pp. 48, 186-98.
41
Gardelli 1988, no. 25.
42
Sangiorgi 1976, p. 48; Gardelli 1988, p. 127.
43
Gronau 1932; Mallet and Dreier 1998, p. 37; the suggestion of Hager 1942 that this service was istoriato,
rather than decorated with grottesche, seems improbable.
44
Rackham 1940, no. 883; Bayerisches Nationalmuseum Ker 1328.
45
Negroni 1998, pp. 108, 114-5.
46
One is in Madrid (Ainaud de Lasarte 1952, no. 845); another, sold, with the one here illustrated, at Christie’s,
London, 29 June 1987, lot 121. The style of painting might, if it were not for possible link to the document,
In sixteenth-century Europe states, rulers, and important courtiers often tried to introduce and
promote luxury crafts in their domains. Guido di Savino of Castel Durante, who had been
working in Antwerp since 1508, was invited, in vain, by Henry VIII of England to set up a
pottery in England47. In France, Anne de Montmorency patronized both Bernard Palissy and
the potters who produced the strange pottery known as “Saint-Porchaire”; while
Piccolpasso’s Tre Libri dell’Arte del Vasaio were probably born from a wish by the Cardinal
de Tournon to promote in France maiolica production in the Urbino region style. In Italy both
glass and porcelain production were promoted by the Medici and other princes. The
patronage of maiolica by the Della Rovere dukes of Urbino should be seen in this historical
context. In the Duchy of Urbino, potters like Maestro Giorgio in Gubbio or the Fontana
family in Urbino owed their success primarily to their own artistic and entrepreneurial skills;
but it may be that future archival research will provide more evidence of how the Dukes and
Duchesses, and especially Guidubaldo II and his family, deliberately fostered in the Duchy of
Urbino one of the most spectacular chapters in world ceramic history.
have led one to suppose a date some ten or twenty years later than 1593 for the Ashmolean plate. Research to
establish whether the quarterings correspond to those used by the Viceroy and his wife are under way. It is
possible that the second service given by the Principessa di Bisignano in 1599 is the one painted with grotesques
and the arms of Fernando Ruiz de Castro Andrade y Portugal, sixth count of Lemos, Viceroy of Naples from 1599
to 1601; pieces of this set are in the British Museum (Wilson 1987, no. 208), the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum,
Braunschweig (Lessmann 1979, no. 254); the Saint Louis Art Museum; and the Fondation Bemberg, Toulouse. The
Lemos set has usually been dated c.1580 on stylistic grounds, which should now be re-examined.
47
Wilson 1999, p. 9. Compare Goldthwaite 1997, pp. 183-4, and the state promotion of the silk-weaving
industry in various parts of Italy, including direct involvement in the industry in Urbino on the part of Francesco
Maria II, described by Molà 2000, pp. 30-7.
Captions
1. Bowl, with the arms of Pope Julius I and of Manzoli of Bologna. Inscribed on the reverse
1508 adi 12 de setêb facta fu î Castel durât Zouâ Maria vrô. Diam: 32.5 cm. Castel Durante,
workshop of “Giovanni Maria”, 1508. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975.1.1015.
2. Plate, with arms of Guidubaldo II. Inscribed on the reverse .G.V.V.D. Munus F. Andree
Volaterrano. (Guidubaldus Urbini Dux gave this to Andrea of Volterra) L’Incendio de Troia:
Diam: 45.8 cm. The composition is adapted from Raphael’s Incendio nel Borgo. Urbino,
probably workshop of Guido and/or Orazio Fontana, after 1559. The Detroit Institute of Arts,
61.168, gift of Mr and Mrs Ernest Kanzler in memoriam Mrs William Clay.
3. Plate with grotesque decoration and Old Testament scenes front and back; on the reverse
are the arms of Farnese beneath a cardinal’s hat. Diam: 44.2 cm. Urbino, probably workshop
of Orazio Fontana, perhaps 1567. The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, F3091.
4. Candlestick, with the Mete device of Guidubaldo II. The Hermitage Museum, Saint
Petersburg..
5. Plate wth grotesque decoration and the arms of Zuñiga. Diam: 27.8 cm. Urbino, Patanazzi
workshop, perhaps part of the gift from the Principessa di Bisignano to the wife of the Viceroy
of Naples, 1593. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2001.177.
6. Vase of flowers with the arms of Bavaria and grotesque ornament. Urbino, perhaps 1585-7.
Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Ker 1328.
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