Montelupo and its ceramics

The art of ceramics is an essential part of Montelupo Fiorentino’s history. Its orgins goes back to remote times, between 1400 and 1530, when Montelupo was the center of maiolica’s production for the city of Florence.
The golden ege of Montelupo’s glazed production begun during the last ten years period of 1400: a growth phase which will last until circa 1530.

That was the period of Florence families’ big orders: Medici, Strozzi, Peruzzi, Pandolfini, Pucci, Machiavelli, Corsini, Minerbetti, when everybody competes to possess a dinner set with family’s coat of arms or plates with heraldic devices like the Filippo Strozzi’s one.
Montelupo’s ceramists are asked to make great noble equipments too as the “alla porcellana” dinner set for Clarice Medici Strozzi, Filippo Strozzi’s wife, which has to stand competition with chinese porcelain imported from the east.

Pieces crafted in Montelupo reaches every part of the world, through mercantile courses. Montelupo’s maiolica remains were found in Great Britain, Spain, Netherland, and also Argentina and Cuba too. Some of the pieces are part of valuables art’s collections, including Victoria and Albert Museums of London.
Local artisans were real artists who handed on their knowledge and experience into workshops: a knowledge’s conveyance wich was handed down from generation to generation.
The “artisian workshops” system worked well for many years, but recent economical and social changes has challenged it.

The application of new technologies, the need to place side by side technical knowledge and theoretical elements, the new social context that made unlikely for sons to follow their fathers’ way, forced some changes in the educational processes.
The ceramics school was founded in order to create an high professional center, where history of maiolica and its tecniques are teached.
During numerous years the school developed the ability to attract the interest of an increasing number of people coming from many part of Italy as well as from abroad. The 70% of people who ended the classes found a job in the ceramic field.
This is an important achievement for the city council who recently, together with Agenzia per lo Sviluppo Empolese Valdelsa, started to think about the future of this educational center, the one and only present in Italy.