Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 15. (Budapest, 1995)
BALLA Gabriella: „Szerelem és ármány" - Mercurius és Aglauros. A kerámia gyűjtemény egyik „istoriato" tálja
GABRIELLA BALLÁ "LOVE & INTRIGUE" - MERCURY AND AGLAUROS. AN ISTORIATO DISH IN THE COLLECTION OF CERAMICS The collection of Italian majolica built up by the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts represents a cross-section of the characteristic, sometimes even remarkable, objects manufactured in the various workshops. The first comprehensive study of these pieces was carried out by Ilona P. Brestyánszky in her work Italienische Majolikakunst. 1 The most prominent pieces of the collection were displayed at an exhibition entitled "Renaissance and Mannerism". 2 The four most beautiful istoriato dishes in the collection, 3 all of which are decorated with the same coat of arms, are especially worthy of attention on account of their high quality and the charming beauty of their decoration, while the "mystery" of the scenes depicted on them, i.e. their iconography, presents a challenge. Istoriato is a characteristic ornamentation found on Italian majolica. It is used to narrate one or more stories thus covering the whole surface of the vessel (bowl, alharello, jug, pilgrim's flask, etc.). Most of the stories thus depicted are from the literature of ancient Greece and Rome; "however, maiolica painters were decidedly not at the cutting edge of humanist scholarship: their knowledge of classical literature and myth was mostly indirect, partial, and unreliable", remarks Timothy Wilson 4 . They took over complete compositions by painters or engravers, and looked to well-known works by Perugino, Michelangelo, Raphael, Giulio Romano, Marcantonio Raimondi, Rosso Fiorentino, Baccio Bandinelli, Albrecht Dürer, or Martin Schongauer for préfiguration. Nevertheless, some original dish designs are also known by Battista Franco 5 and Taddeo Zuccaro 6 are also known. When majolica painters decided to rely on "texts", they used the Italian versions of works by Ovid, Virgil, Valerius Maximus, Livy, or Suetonius. Included among them was Giovanni Bonsignore's 1370 paraphrasing of Ovid's Metamorphoses, printed, with woodcuts, in Venice in 1497. Of course, the depiction of Biblical themes was also quite common. 7 It is difficult to determine where istoriato majolica was first made. Between 1500 and 1520 Faenza was the most important centre of its manufacture, where artists usually painted onto blue-glazed pottery (berettino). Around 1515, however, istoriato vessels were also painted in other centres of majolica manufacturing centres, such as Emilia-Romagna, the Marches, Umbria and Tuscany. In the 1520s and 1530s it was at Urbino and Castel Durante that the most important workshops could be found. Although in terms of quantity the latter centre was more productive, the best majolica painters worked in Urbino, the capitalof the duchy, with Nicola da Urbino (also known as Nicola Pellipario) and Francesco Xallo Avelli da Rovigo among them. The influence of these artists on majolica painting was to be felt for decades (the "Urbino style", the "Metauro school" 8 ). Istoriato majolica dishes abundant in subtle colours were presented as gifts on such occasions as engagements, weddings or birthdays. The sideboard, or credenza, with its gold and silver-ware was used for decorative purposes 9 . The dish 10 under discussion has a low foot, its rim bends in a curve and there is a mythological scene, that of Mercury and Aglauros, depicted in its well (111. 1). In the foreground,
