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| Wedding plate coming from the Ceramic Museum of Deruta, Italy |
In 2016 one of our ceramologists from Deruta, Mr. Giulio Busti, led a lecture about Deruta Renaissance ceramics. The event was organized by the local Unesco association downtown Perugia.
A favorite ceramic plate of mine was on the event's poster. So that day I drove to Perugia to Busti's lecture.
Besides additional information about the Meniconi-Dolgorouki wedding plate, I have learned several interesting curiosities about my town, Deruta, that I wish to share with you:
1. Deruta ceramics can be admired in 80 different museums in the world;
2. After the plagues immigrants were invited to come and live in Deruta. They were encouraged by the fact that their work would have state tax free for 40 years to follow;
3. It's towards the 1400s that human profiles are being added to the ceramic paintings;
4. The luster technique in Italy was part of the heritage of the towns of Deruta and Gubbio only. If the luster technique was in usage in some other parts of Italy it was only a rare example and much weaker than these two ceramic towns;
5. Deruta ceramicists were very attentive to events that happened in Perugia. Indeed Deruta was a castle belonging to the noble Baglioni family from Perugia. Works of art were created to remember events such as the 'Bloody Wedding' of July 14th, 1501 represented by a ceramic St. Sebastian;
6. Deruta ceramicists were familiar with the artist Perugino who was in Deruta 1476 to paint the ex-voto with which the Derutese were thanking Allmighty God and antipestiferous saints St. Rock and St. Roman for the end of the plague.
Additionally, Mr. Busti's lecture was divided into two parts. The first part was about the Renaissance ceramic tradition in Deruta. It was meant to introduce artist, scholar, genius loci Alpinolo Magnini (1877-1952) who made a change in Deruta by reviving the ceramic Renaissance tradition, which had been swept away by the Industrial Revolution. For this reason, I think it is very interesting to go back to my favorite plate that Alpinolo Magnini painted in 1903 for Mr. and Mrs. Luigi Andreoli, the plate used on the event's poster. Mr. and Mrs. Luigi Andreoli had ordered this ceramic plate as a wedding gift for count Meniconi Bracceschi who was getting married to Russian princess Dolgorouki on September 15th, 1903. Miss Dolgorouki is said to be the niece of the Tzar of Russia. This piece of information I have learned at the lecture besides the fact that Mrs. Andreoli's maiden name was Vanna Briganti. The Briganti family is one of the most important families of Deruta and now I wish to double check if they are related to the Magninis.
