1. Foreword Anversa degli Abruzzi, a small city located at a short distance from the town of Sulmona (Abruzzo, Central Italy), has been a ceramic production center since the beginning of the 16th century until the mid 20th century....
more1. Foreword
Anversa degli Abruzzi, a small city located at a short distance from the town of Sulmona (Abruzzo, Central Italy), has been a ceramic production center since the beginning of the 16th century until the mid 20th century. Surveys conducted over the past fifteen years have allowed us to document the existence of a number of ceramic workshops and related dumping areas. Documentary evidence suggests that between the 16th and the 17th centuries, ceramics for common use, such as glazed cooking wares and table slipwares, were produced. Better quality and more rare pottery such as marbleised wares and relief moulded glazed vessels were also produced. These pieces contain coat of arms that can be referred to important noble families of the Kingdom of Naples who were the feudal lords of Anversa in the 17th century, and the most important clients of Anversa’s workshops in this period.
Among the common wares it is worth recalling the glazed cooking wares, mostly intended for local consumption, and the monochrome or painted in majolica style slipwares, pieces which were fairly widespread in the region and also in the neighboring regions (Lazio and Molise).
In the second half of the 16th century evidence shows also that majolica (tin glazed) and glazed relief decorated architectural tiles, used for some panels in Tivoli (Rome), Palma Campania (Naples) and Abruzzo (churches of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Collarmele and San Francesco in Castelvecchio Subequo, L’Aquila) were also produced. In the 18th century there was a depletion of the local production and the only documented items produced are the glazed cooking wares. The second half of the 19th century saw the reintroduction of the production of popular majolica by some manufacturers, one that will continue until the 1950s.
2. Archival Sources
Since the beginning of the research the archival material has been an essential tool to locate with certainty the ancient kilns, also allowing to retrace all the changes of ownership of the manufactories and the alternation of the different families of potters in the course of time. The data files were also crucial to the reconstruction of the genealogical trees of the main families of potters active between the 17th and 20th centuries.
3. Oral Sources
Another important research tool is the collection of oral sources relating to the conduct of workshops. In particular, the interviews of the last descendants of the Ricci and Marcelli families, families of local potters since the 17th century, have allowed us to clarify the exact operation of the kilns which still exist on site, and its working cycles, such as the extraction and preparation of the clay, the shaping on the wheel, the drying, the first and second firing, as well as the preparation of the glaze by calcination of lead and tin. The same oral sources were essential to identify the functions of certain spaces and work areas inside and outside the workshops.
4. Archaeological sources
The analysis of many archaeological contexts and materials from surface survey has allowed us to outline a rather precise pattern of the ceramics wares, especially with regard to the tipology of the artifacts, their chronology and geographical distribution. As regards the study of the workshops still existing in situ, stratigraphic reading of the kilns allowed for a first study of the construction techniques and the related typology.
5. The Kilns
Of the numerous workshops known from the sources only four kilns are preserved today whose implant can be placed between the 18th and 19th centuries. They are ceramic workshops belonged to the Ranalli, Ricci and Marcelli families. The oldest is the kiln named B 6 belonged to the Ranalli family prior to 1739 and until 1831 when it was sold to the Ricci family whose last heirs produced ceramics there until the 1950s. Currently, the furnace is preserved almost in its original state.
The kiln B13, located along Via Santa Maria delle Fornaci, founded probably in the 1830s, has always been owned by the Marcelli family and there the last potter descendants worked until the 1960s. In early 2000 this factory has undergone a first substantial renovation that has completely redefined the facade. A second ongoing restoration has unfortunately done further damages to the original workshop.
Finally, the kiln B14 seems to have been built in the mid 19th century by the potter Serafino Ricci (1813-90) and was active until the 1940s. Unfortunately, the structure appears to be seriously damaged by the collapse of the roof and the floors and by their infiltration going on for several decades.
6. Type and operation
The study of such workshops makes it possible to identify a type of vertical kiln characterized by two firing chambers and one related combustion chamber. The first chamber closest to the fire was intended for the second firing of artefacts that had already received a glaze coating. In the second chamber were instead placed the raw pieces for the first firing. An additional space above, when present, was intended for the drying of the raw pieces. In the furnaces B6 and B14 there were also a small reverberatory kiln built into the wall of the furnace next to the mouth. This little space was used for the calcination of lead and tin which from the metallic state were reduced to powder to be used for coating. The space on the ground floor of the workshops was occupied by the wheel with which the vessels were made out of raw clay and by other places for the storage and the first drying of the products. In the compartment at the first floor products were also deposited that were baked in the firing top together with the timber to be suitably dried for combustion. The firing cycle lasted around 12-14 hours and consists of the ignition phase, a slow and gradual heating, a maximum heating, when it reached the highest temperatures of around 900°C, and a gradual cooling.
In conclusion, the analyzed workshops and kilns enable us to document a developmental stage of the oldest single-chamber kilns of the Renaissance tradition with the introduction of a dual vertical firing chamber, also incorporating the small reverberatory kiln for calcination of lead and tin that was previously partly achieved.
These kilns were mainly used for glazed cooking pottery, and, to a lesser extent, for majolica. According to current knowledge on the region, we can find some substantial differences with the kilns used for majolica production in Castelli, characterized by a single firing chamber, and with the types taken from the original Castelli potters migrated in 18th and 19th centuries to other centres such as Torre de’ Passeri (Pescara) and L’Aquila.
