Savona

Along with Venice, Liguria was the most active maiolica center of 17^th century Italy. The Ligurian school included the work of craftsmen based in Genoa, Albenga, and other towns, but was dominated by the artisans of Albisola and Savona.

Although ceramic production in these small coastal towns dates to at least the 12^th century, the regular manufacture of quality maiolica began in the 1400s. Documentation of ceramic activity in the area include 16^th-, 17^th- and 18^th-century maps detailing the location of working kilns.

Output during the 1500s was dominated by decorative tiles in the style of Urbino, such as those of the Adoration of 1576 in the Chiesa della Concordia in Albisola, the floors and walls which once adorned the Porticato and Palazzo dei Pavesi in Savona, and the panels of S. Maria di Castello in Genoa. The major workshops of Albisola were also responsible for the production of household wares and an impressive range of pharmaceutical vessels based on the sophisticated repertories of Urbino and Faenza, but realized in a more linear, calligraphic style.

The tendency toward more streamlined visual representations was especially pronounced in Savona, where toward the end of the 16^th century potters used the clean forms of Faenza white wares as a point of departure for the development of a new maiolica style.

The influence of craftsmen from Albisola on production in Savona during this time should not be overlooked. Many artisans moved to Savona after a number of kilns in Albissola Marina, the area seated along the shore below Albisola Superiore, were destroyed by the sea. The contribution of these artisans to the development of the monochromatic blue maiolica known today as Antico Savona wares cannot be measured, but some of the earliest pieces carry the mark of Albisola workshops.

The imaginative, swiftly-painted scenes of the Chiodo family, based on fashionable prints by Antonio Tempesta and others, were copied by craftsmen in Nevers and Moustiers, launching a variety of French styles based on the Savonese tradition.

This exchange continued later in the century when members of the Corrado family of Albisola introduced Guidobono styles to the school at Nevers. The Guidobono workshop was the most prolific of late 17^th century Liguria. Their wares represented the most sublime merging of relief work and painted ornament and, as mentioned, were influential locally and abroad.

In Italy, the 18^th century schools of Angarano, near Bassano, and Castelli, the small town in the Abruzzi that hosted the workshop of Carlo Antonio Grue, were directly inspired by the Antico Savona style and other developments in Liguria.

The influence of Savona waned as German and French styles began to overtake the market. At the end of the 1700s Albissola Marina hosted 32 working kilns, but production focused increasingly on a new kind of terra cotta known as taches noires.

The area saw a brief revival in the late 19^th-early 20^th century with the manufacture of Liberty- and Art deco-inspired ceramics, and witnessed a true renaissance in the 1930s when talented and charismatic artists working in maiolica founded a number of workshops, many of which remain active to this day.