1545, ALMOST CERTAINLY BY FRANCESCO DURANTINO, PERHAPS IN THE WORKSHOP OF GUIDO DI MERLINO

The inscription on the reverse come d[i] na[n]zi a Scipio re africano fu menata la moglie d[i] luzio pri[n]cipe d[i] celtebari translates as 'how the wife of Luzio, prince of the Celtebari, was brought before Scipio, king of the Africans', and it refers to a famous episode of clemency from the Punic War. After his capture of the Spanish city of New Carthage, the Roman General Scipio Africanus Major was brought a beautiful young girl by his soldiers as a spoil of war. On learning that the girl was betrothed to be married, Scipio summoned her fiancé and returned the girl to him unharmed.

The overall design concept of this dish is extremely similar to designs drawn by the mannerist artist Battista Franco (1510-1561), which frequently included elaborate borders.1 Vasari records that Franco's designs were supplied directly to the Castel Durante maiolicari by Franco,2 and it is highly probable that the present dish was derived from one of these drawings. Franco had been engaged by Guidobaldo II, Duke of Urbino, to paint a fresco showing 'The Coronation of the Virgin' in Urbino cathedral, and although the Duke was apparently disappointed with the result,3 he recognised that Franco's skill as a draughtsman was such that his disegni could be used to great effect for maiolica. Vasari, who noted that 'Battista was an able man, and in the making of drawings you could say he had no equal',4 recorded that the Duke commissioned Franco to provide designs for maiolica:

[The Duke] 'thought his drawings, when carried out by those who made excellent earthenware vessels at Castel Durante and who had much used Raphael da Urbino's engravings and those of other able men, would be very effective. So he made Battista do a large number of drawings which, when executed in that, the finest earthenware in all Italy, turned out marvellously well. Such great quantities of these vessels were therefore made and of so many kinds, that they would have sufficed for and done honour to a royal service: and the paintings on them would not have been better had they been done in oils by the finest artists. These wares, as far as the clay was concerned, resemble in quality that which was employed in Antiquity at Arezzo in the time of Porsenna king of Tuscany. Duke Guidobaldo sent a double service of this ware to the Emperor Charles V and a service to Cardinal Farnese, brother of Signora Vettoria, his consort'.5

It is not known exactly when Franco arrived in Urbino to work for the Duke, but it is thought he worked intermittently for him between about 1545 and 1551. In their 1976 article,6 Timothy Clifford and John Mallet discuss the events of the time that could have precipitated the need for the Duke to make a diplomatic gift of maiolica services to Emperor Charles V (1500-1558) and the Duke's brother-in-law, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520-1589), and they note that Franco had 'not been paid for making forty drawings for a credenza in an out outstanding account of the duke's in 1551', which 'must surely refer to a service of maiolica.'7

If the decoration of this plate was inspired by a drawing by Franco, such a drawing has yet to be found, and it is intriguing that the date of 1545 should be very early in Franco's stay in Urbino. It is possible that Franco's original drawing has been lost, but in the absence of a Franco design the possibility of the dish being based on a different source cannot be ruled out. The figures at the top of this dish also bear a similarity to a design attributed to Jacopo Bertucci (called Jacopone da Faenza or Jacopo dei Pittori).8

A plate with a related border in Pesaro is illustrated by Claudio Giardini, Pesaro, Museo delle ceramiche, Museum Catalogue, Bologna, 1996, p. 70, no. 191, and is also illustrated by Joseph Chompret, Repertoire de la Majolique Italienne, Paris, 1949, Vol. II, p. 103, fig. 815.

In 1987 John Mallet put forward a powerful argument for Camillo Gatti, working in Guido Durantino's workshop, as being the principal proponent of Battista Franco's designs between about 1545 and 1548. A letter from Pietro Aretino in Venice to Franco in June 1550 reminds Franco of a drawing and requests a loan on behalf of 'Camillo, your admirer and pupil and my friend and dear boy' for a loan for Camillo's sister's dowry.9 Mallet suggested that the Camillo mentioned in this correspondence is probably Camillo Gatti, who was originally from Castel Durante, and who was described in his wedding contract as a 'potter or painter'.10 If Gatti was a pupil of Franco, then as Mallet suggests, 'who more likely than he to have been entrusted with carrying out the first and finest pieces of maiolica based on Franco's drawings?'11

However, the handwriting on the reverse of this dish matches that on the reverse of documentary pieces signed and painted by Francesco Durantino. Francesco Durantino (Francesco di Berardino of Castel Durante) makes his first appearance in surviving documents in 1537, when he witnessed a document within the workshop of Guido Durantino,12 and it is thought that at this time he presumably worked in Guido Durantino's workshop. In 1543 he signed a contract with Guido di Merlino,13 and it is not known if he continued to work for Guido di Merlino until his departure from Urbino in 1547, or if he worked in a different workshop.

A dish in Hamburg depicting the same subject bears a very similar inscription on the reverse in the same handwriting as the the present lot.14 The scene on the Hamburg dish differs from this plate, but the foreground of both pieces share a similar treatment of the ground, which is given depth by a series of angular steps. A shallow bowl in the British Museum by Francesco Durantino utilises similar angular steps in the foreground, see Dora Thornton and Timothy Wilson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics, A Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, London, 2009, Vol. I, pp. 312-314, no. 184.


1. See Timothy Clifford and J.V.G. Mallet, 'Battista Franco as a Designer for Maiolica', Burlington Magazine, no. 879, June 1976, pp. 387-410 and Johanna Lessmann, 'Battista Franco Disegnatore di Maioliche' in Faenza, No. 2, 1976, pp. 27-30.
2. As discussed by T. Clifford and J. Mallet, ibid., 1976, p. 396, many of the potters in Urbino had come from Castel Durante, and it is possible that this is the source of Vasari's assertion that the maiolica came from that town rather than Urbino. Franco also taught Gatti, from Castel Durante, who was working in Urbino, see J.V.G. Mallet, 'In Botega di Maestro Guido Durantino in Urbino', Burlington Magazine, no. 129, May 1987, pp. 292-294.
3. As related by Vasari; although the Duke cannot have been too disappointed, or he wouldn't have given him another commission in 1551. 4. Vasari-Milanesi, VI, p. 581.
5. Vasari-Milanesi, VI, pp. 581-582.
6. T. Clifford and J. Mallet, ibid., 1976, pp. 387-410.
7. A document dated 7th December 1551 and written by a secretary of Guidobaldo records that the Duke owed Franco for the decorations of the Cappella del Corpo di Christo, portraits and other matters including nel credito vecchio si computa anco 40 historie che lui fece gia per una credenza per l'E.V., cited by T. Clifford and J. Mallet, ibid., 392.
8. In the Uffizi, Florence (706 Orn.), among a group of drawings with designs for ornament which are attributed to him. The drawing is illustrated by Timothy Clifford, 'Some unpublished drawings for maiolica and Federigo Zuccaro's role in the "Spanish Service"' in T. Wilson (ed.), Italian Renaissance Pottery, Papers written in association with a colloquium at the British Museum, London, 1991, p. 173, fig. 2.
9. E. Camesasca (ed.), Lettere Sull'Arte di Pietro Aretino Vol. II, 1543-1555, Milan, 1958, pp. 335-336, cited by Mallet, ibid., 1987, pp. 292-293.
10. F. Negroni, 'Nicolò Pellipario: Ceramista Fantasma', Urbino, Università degli Studi, Istituto di Storia dell'Arte, Notizie da Palazzo Albani, Anno XIV, No. 1, 1985, pp. 14-15, note 11, cited by Mallet, ibid., 1987, pp. 293.
11. Mallet, ibid., 1987, p. 293.
12. Giuliana Gardelli, Italika. Maiolica italiana del Rinascimento. Saggi e Studi, Faenza, 1999, p. 275.
13. With two other potters; Luca di Bartolomeo Baldi and Fedele di Giovanni Fulmine, see Gardelli, ibid., 1999, pp. 240-241.
14. See Jörg Rasmussen, Italienische Majolika, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, 1984, pp. 184-186, no. 127.