Ceramics in the history of Amalfi Coast
The oldest ceramics production certificate in the Amalfi Coast dates back to the Neolithic, when, around 8000 years ago, primitive men made terracotta bowls, later found in the 50s of the last century in the La Porta di Positano cave.
In order to witness the production of vases and large containers, we will have to wait until the Roman imperial era. So many are the historiographical evidences above all of Matteo Camera together with the findings of pottery, wine dolea, dishes made in Agerola, Tramonti, Minori, in particular in the area or near rustic or maritime villas. Moreover, in the Tramonti area there was an abundance of red clay of ancient geological formation; there the toponym Figlino speaks volumes about the local clay production: in fact it derives from figulinus, the Latin word for potter. Even in the sixteenth century it was stated that by means of the Tramonti clay they made dishes “more beautiful than those of Faenza”, the latter of Emilia is famous for its ceramics.
Fragments of Roman pottery of the Republican age came to light during the excavation of some 15th century tombs, located in an environment subjected to the church of S. Maria Maggiore in Amalfi (now Oratorio di San Filippo Neri). We wonder what relationship there may have been between the place of discovery and the traces of a Roman villa located a few tens of meters away.
Furnaces and laboratories for ceramics certainly existed in Amalfi during the Middle Ages. In 1390 it is clearly indicated an urban domus, then owned by the noble lineage of the Capuano, but two centuries before it had been of the Collogattos, in the context of which Andrea da Eboli, who called himself cretarius, operated as a tenant. In those environments we have recently discovered an oven dating back to the 14th century. Eboli must have been in the Middle Ages a land where workers were employed who worked terracotta and ceramics: further proof of this is provided by the testimony of a Pietro di Eboli magister figulinus working in Salerno in 1090. The urban area of Amalfi where Andrea da Eboli’s oven was located was called Resina; the building that developed around it was inhabited in particular by characters, mostly from Ravello, who called themselves magistri. Even today the site is known as La Faenza: this is a confirmation of the fact that various ceramists were active there for several centuries. On the other hand, Faenzere was called the Vietri ceramic factories at least since the 18th century.
Medieval ceramics produced locally or from the Arab world are still evident on the bell tower of the bell tower of the cathedral of Amalfi (yellow and green majolica), as well as in the shape of bowls with some Kufic inscriptions in S. Giovanni del Toro di Ravello; still in that city, in the Villa Rufolo, a fragment of a water pipe in terracotta was even discovered, glazed inside.
The eighteenth-century Vietri school produced then wonderful artistic ceramic floors, present in S. Luca di Praiano, S. Biagio and SS. Trinità of Amalfi, S. Pietro di Figlino in Tramonti; in this last church the scene of a fight between peacocks stands out for the definition of the details and the characteristic chromatic play. In the nineteenth century the same Vietrese school, which a century later will also be affected by German workers, built the spectacular majolica domes of the major churches of Vietri, Cetara, Maiori, Vettica Maggiore, Positano.
Even today, on the occasion of violent sea storms, the sauces waves bring back glazed ceramic fragments from all ages, from the Middle Ages to the last century.
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