Gubbio
Gubbio is a town and comune in the far northeastern part of the Italian province of Perugia. It is located on the lowest slope of a small mountain of the Apennines; the city's origins are ancient. The hills above the town were occupied in the Bronze Age; as Ikuvium, it was an important town of the Umbri in pre-Roman times, made famous for the discovery there of the Iguvine Tablets in 1444, a set of bronze tablets that together constitute the largest surviving text in the Umbrian language. After the Roman conquest in the 2nd century BC — it kept its name as Iguvium — the city remained important, as attested by its Roman theatre, the second-largest surviving in the world. Gubbio became powerful in the beginning of the Middle Ages; the town sent 1000 knights to fight in the First Crusade under the lead of Girolamo Gabrielli, according to an undocumented local tradition, they were the first to penetrate into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre when the city was seized. The following centuries were quite turbulent, Gubbio was engaged in wars against the surrounding towns of Umbria.
One of these wars saw the miraculous intervention of its bishop, who secured Gubbio an overwhelming victory and a period of prosperity. In the struggles of Guelphs and Ghibellines, the Gabrielli, such as the condottiero Cante dei Gabrielli da Gubbio, were of the Guelph faction, supportive of the papacy. In 1350 Giovanni Gabrielli, count of Borgovalle, a member of the most prominent noble family of Gubbio, seized communal power and became lord of Gubbio; however his rule was short, he was forced to hand over the town to Cardinal Gil Álvarez Carrillo de Albornoz, representing the Church. A few years Gabriello Gabrielli, bishop of Gubbio, proclaimed himself again lord of Gubbio. Betrayed by a group of noblemen which included many of his relatives, the bishop was forced to leave the town and seek refuge at his home castle at Cantiano. With the decline of the political prestige of the Gabrielli family, Gubbio was thereafter incorporated into the territories of the House of Montefeltro. Federico da Montefeltro rebuilt the ancient Palazzo Ducale, incorporating in it a studiolo veneered with intarsia like his studiolo at Urbino.
The maiolica industry at Gubbio reached its apogee in the first half of the 16th century, with metallic lustre glazes imitating gold and copper. Gubbio became part of the Papal States in 1631, when the family della Rovere, to whom the Duchy of Urbino had been granted, was extinguished. In 1860 Gubbio was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy along with the rest of the Papal States; the name of the Pamphili family, a great papal family, originated in Gubbio went to Rome under the pontificate of Pope Innocent VIII, is immortalized by Diego Velázquez and his portrait of Pope Innocent X. The town is located near the border with Marche; the municipality borders Cagli, Costacciaro, Fossato di Vico, Gualdo Tadino, Pietralunga, Scheggia e Pascelupo, Sigillo and Valfabbrica. The frazioni of the comune of Gubbio are the villages of: Belvedere, Branca, Camporeggiano, Casamorcia-Raggio, Colonnata, Ferratelle, Magrano, Monteleto, Nogna, Petroia, Ponte d'Assi, San Benedetto Vecchio, San Marco, San Martino in Colle, Santa Cristina, Semonte, Torre Calzolari and Villa Magna.
The historical centre of Gubbio has a decidedly medieval aspect: the town is austere in appearance because of the dark grey stone, narrow streets, Gothic architecture. Many houses in central Gubbio date to the 14th and 15th centuries, were the dwellings of wealthy merchants, they have a second door fronting on the street just a few inches from the main entrance. This secondary entrance is narrower, a foot or so above the actual street level; this type of door is called a porta dei morti because it was proposed that they were used to remove the bodies of any who might have died inside the house. This is certainly false, but there is no agreement as to the purpose of the secondary doors. A more theory is that the door was used by the owners to protect themselves when opening to unknown persons, leaving them in a dominating position. Among most visited buildings and sites in the city are: Roman Theater: This ancient open air theater built in the 1st century BC using square blocks of local limestone.
Traces of mosaic decoration have been found. The diameter of the cavea was 70 metres, could house up to 6,000 spectators. Roman Mausoleum: This Mausoleum is sometimes said to be of Gaius Pomponius Graecinus, but on no satisfactory grounds. Palazzo dei Consoli: Dating to the first half of the 14th century, this massive palace, is now a museum housing the Iguvine Tablets. Palazzo and Torre Gabrielli Duomo: This Cathedral was built in the late 12th century; the most striking feature is the rose-window in the façade with, at its sides, the symbols of the Evangelists: the eagle for John the Evangelist, the lion for Mark the Evangelist, the angel for Matthew the Apostle and the ox for Luke the Evangelist. The interior has latine cross plan with a single nave; the most precious art piece is the wooden Christ of Umbrian school. Palazzo Ducale: The Palace built from 1470 by Luciano Laurana or Francesco di Giorgio Martini for Federico da Montefeltro. Famous is the inner court, reminiscent of the Palazzo Ducale, Urbino.
San Francesco: This church from the second half of the 13th century is the sole re
Sgraffito
Sgraffito is a technique either of wall decor, produced by applying layers of plaster tinted in contrasting colours to a moistened surface, or in pottery, by applying to an unfired ceramic body two successive layers of contrasting slip or glaze, in either case scratching so as to reveal parts of the underlying layer. The Italian past participle "sgraffiato" is used of pottery. Sgraffito and Sgraffiti derive from the Italian word graffiare from the Greek γράφειν. Related terms include graffito and graffiti. Sgraffito on walls has been used in Europe since classical times, it was popularized in Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries and can be found in African art. In combination with ornamental decoration these techniques formed an alternative to the prevailing painting of walls. Of late there has been an unmistakable growing interest in this old technique; the technical procedure is simple, the procedures are similar to the painting of frescoes. Sgraffito played a significant role during the years of the Renaissance in Italy, with two of Raphael's workshop, Polidoro da Caravaggio and his partner Maturino da Firenze, among the leading specialists, painting palace facades in Rome and other cities.
Most of their work has now weathered away. During the 16th century, the technique was brought to Germany by the master builders of the Renaissance and taken up with enthusiasm; as a simple native art, old examples of sgraffito can be found in the wide surroundings of Wetterau and Marburg. In Germany, the technique is most predominant in Bavaria; the use of sgraffito was common in the creation of housing façades for the purposes of advertising. The technique was used in Thuringia, the Engadin and Transylvania. In Catalonia, sgraffito was implemented in the early 20th century by the Noucentista neo-classical architects and became a recurrent technique in façade decoration. Another use of sgraffito is seen in its simplified painting technique. One coat of paint is left to dry on a sheet of paper. Another coat of a different color is painted on top of the first layer; the artist uses a palette knife or oil stick to scratch out a design, leaving behind an image in the color of the first coat of paint.
This can be achieved by using oil pastels for the first layer and black ink for the top layer. Sometimes a first coat of paint is not needed, the wet coat scraped back reveals the canvas; this cannot be achieved by using the oil pastel method. This technique is used in art classes to teach the sgraffito technique to novice art students. In glass making, sgraffito refers to creating imagery with finely powdered black glass on a sheet glass substrate. Sgraffito is a subtractive technique; the powdered glass is manipulated with a variety of tools. The finished drawing is vulnerable until the piece is fired in a kiln. Examples of graphic work on facades saw a resurgence circa 1890 through 1915, in the context of the rise of the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Vienna Secession, the Art Nouveau movement in Belgium and France; the English artist Heywood Sumner has been identified as this era's pioneer of the technique, for example his work at the 1892 St Mary's Church, Surrey. Sumner's work is sgraffito per se, scratched plaster, but the term has come to encompass a variety of techniques for producing exterior graphic decoration.
Other examples include: ceramic panels on the Grande Maison de Blanc, architect Oscar François, artist Henri Privat-Livemont, 1896–1897 the Hôtel Ciamberlani, architect Paul Hankar, 1897 Princess of Dreams tile tympanum and other work, Hotel Metropol, architect William Walcot, artist Mikhail Vrubel, 1899–1907 the Cauchie house, architect Paul Cauchie, 1905 ceramic Homage to Prague tympanum of the Municipal House in Prague, architect Osvald Polívka, artist Karel Špillar, 1905–1912 Scagliola Stucco Terrazzo Venetian plaster Scratchboard Sgraffito Collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. St. Benet's Chaplaincy at Queen Mary, University of London
Seville
Seville is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville, Spain. It is situated on the plain of the river Guadalquivir; the inhabitants of the city are known as sevillanos or hispalenses, after the Roman name of the city, Hispalis. Seville has a municipal population of about 690,000 as of 2016, a metropolitan population of about 1.5 million, making it the fourth-largest city in Spain and the 30th most populous municipality in the European Union. Its Old Town, with an area of 4 square kilometres, contains three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Alcázar palace complex, the Cathedral and the General Archive of the Indies; the Seville harbour, located about 80 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean, is the only river port in Spain. Seville is the hottest major metropolitan area in the geographical Southwestern Europe, with summer average high temperatures of above 35 °C. Seville was founded as the Roman city of Hispalis, it became known as Ishbiliyya after the Muslim conquest in 712.
During the Muslim rule in Spain, Seville came under the jurisdiction of the Caliphate of Córdoba before becoming the independent Taifa of Seville. After the discovery of the Americas, Seville became one of the economic centres of the Spanish Empire as its port monopolised the trans-oceanic trade and the Casa de Contratación wielded its power, opening a Golden Age of arts and literature. In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan departed from Seville for the first circumnavigation of the Earth. Coinciding with the Baroque period of European history, the 17th century in Seville represented the most brilliant flowering of the city's culture; the 20th century in Seville saw the tribulations of the Spanish Civil War, decisive cultural milestones such as the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 and Expo'92, the city's election as the capital of the Autonomous Community of Andalusia. Hisbaal is the oldest name for Seville, it appears to have originated during the Phoenician colonisation of the Tartessian culture in south-western Iberia and it refers to the God Baal.
According to Manuel Pellicer Catalán, the ancient name was Spal, it meant "lowland" in the Phoenician language. During Roman rule, the name was Latinised as Hispal and as Hispalis. After the Umayyad invasion, this name was adapted into Arabic as Ishbiliyya: since p does not exist in Arabic, it was replaced by b. NO8DO is the official motto of Seville, popularly believed to be a rebus signifying the Spanish No me ha dejado, meaning "She has not abandoned me"; the phrase, pronounced with synalepha as, is spelled with an eight in the middle representing the word madeja "skein ". Legend states that the title was given by King Alfonso X, resident in the city's Alcázar and supported by the citizens when his son Sancho IV of Castile, tried to usurp the throne from him; the emblem is present on Seville's municipal flag, features on city property such as manhole covers, Christopher Columbus's tomb in the Cathedral. Seville is 2,200 years old; the passage of the various civilizations instrumental in its growth has left the city with a distinct personality, a large and well-preserved historical centre.
The mythological founder of the city is Hercules identified with the Phoenician god Melqart, who the myth says sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar to the Atlantic, founded trading posts at the current sites of Cádiz and of Seville. The original core of the city, in the neighbourhood of the present-day street, Cuesta del Rosario, dates to the 8th century BC, when Seville was on an island in the Guadalquivir. Archaeological excavations in 1999 found anthropic remains under the north wall of the Real Alcázar dating to the 8th–7th century BC; the town was called Hisbaal by the Phoenicians and by the Tartessians, the indigenous pre-Roman Iberian people of Tartessos, who controlled the Guadalquivir Valley at the time. The city was known from Roman times as Hispal and as Hispalis. Hispalis developed into one of the great market and industrial centres of Hispania, while the nearby Roman city of Italica remained a Roman residential city. Large-scale Roman archaeological remains can be seen there and at the nearby town of Carmona as well.
Existing Roman features in Seville itself include the remains exposed in situ in the underground Antiquarium of the Metropol Parasol building, the remnants of an aqueduct, three pillars of a temple in Mármoles Street, the columns of La Alameda de Hércules and the remains in the Patio de Banderas square near the Seville Cathedral. The walls surrounding the city were built during the rule of Julius Caesar, but their current course and design were the result of Moorish reconstructions. Following Roman rule, there were successive conquests of the Roman province of Hispania Baetica by the Vandals, the Suebi and the Visigoths during the 5th and 6th centuries. Seville was taken by the Moors, during the conquest of Hispalis in 712, it was the capital for the kings of the Umayyad Caliphate, the Almoravid dynasty first and
Arezzo
Arezzo is a city and comune in Italy and the capital of the province of the same name located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about 80 kilometres southeast of Florence at an elevation of 296 metres above sea level, it is 30 km west of Città di Castello. In 2013 the population was about 99,000. Described by Livy as one of the Capitae Etruriae, Arezzo is believed to have been one of the twelve most important Etruscan cities—the so-called Dodecapolis, part of the Etruscan League. Etruscan remains establish that the acropolis of San Cornelio, a small hill next to that of San Donatus, was occupied and fortified in the Etruscan period. There is other significant Etruscan evidence: parts of walls, an Etruscan necropolis on Poggio del Sole, most famously, the two bronzes, the "Chimera of Arezzo" and the "Minerva" which were discovered in the 16th century and taken to Florence. Increasing trade connections with Greece brought some elite goods to the Etruscan nobles of Arezzo: the krater painted by Euphronios c. 510 BC depicting a battle against Amazons is unsurpassed.
Conquered by the Romans in 311 BC, Arretium became a military station on the via Cassia, the road by which Rome expanded into the basin of the Po. Arretium sided with Marius in the Roman Civil War, the victorious Sulla planted a colony of his veterans in the half-demolished city, as Arretium Fidens; the old Etruscan aristocracy was not extinguished: Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, whose name is eponymous with "patron of the arts", was of the noble Aretine Etruscan stock. The city continued to flourish as Arretium Vetus, the third largest city in Italy in the Augustan period, well known in particular for its exported pottery manufactures, the characteristic moulded and glazed Arretine ware, bucchero-ware of dark clay and red-painted vases. Around 261 AD the town council of Arezzo dedicated an inscription to its patron L. Petronius Taurus Volusianus. See that article for discussion of the possible political/military significance of Volusianus's association with the city. In the 3rd to 4th century Arezzo became an episcopal seat: it is one of the few cities whose succession of bishops are known by name without interruption to the present day, in part because they were the feudal lords of the city in the Middle Ages.
The Roman city was demolished through the Gothic War and the invasion of the Lombards dismantled, as elsewhere throughout Europe, the stones reused for fortifications by the Aretines. Only the amphitheater remained; the commune of Arezzo threw off the control of its bishop in 1098 and was an independent city-state until 1384. Ghibelline in tendency, it opposed Guelph Florence. In 1252 the city founded the Studium. After the rout of the Battle of Campaldino, which saw the death of Bishop Guglielmino Ubertini, the fortunes of Ghibelline Arezzo started to ebb, apart from a brief period under the Tarlati family, chief among them Guido Tarlati, who became bishop in 1312 and maintained good relations with the Ghibelline party; the Tarlati sought support in an alliance with Forlì and its overlords, the Ordelaffi, but failed: Arezzo yielded to Florentine domination in 1384. During this period Piero della Francesca worked in the church of San Francesco di Arezzo producing the splendid frescoes restored, which are Arezzo's most famous works.
Afterwards the city began an economical and cultural decay, which ensured that its medieval centre was preserved. In the 18th century the neighbouring marshes of the Val di Chiana, south of Arezzo, were drained and the region became less malarial. At the end of the-century French troops led by Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Arezzo, but the city soon turned into a resistance base against the invaders with the "Viva Maria" movement, winning the city the role of provincial capital. In 1860 Arezzo became part of the Kingdom of Italy. City buildings suffered heavy damage during World War II; the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Arezzo War Cemetery, where 1,266 men are buried, is located to the North West of the city. Pope Benedict XVI visited Arezzo and two other Italian municipalities on May 13, 2012. Arezzo is set on a steep hill rising from the floodplain of the River Arno. In the upper part of the town are the cathedral, the town hall and the Medici Fortress, from which the main streets branch off towards the lower part as far as the gates.
The upper part of the town maintains its medieval appearance despite the addition of structures. Arezzo's city proper is near the high risk areas for earthquakes, but located in a transitional area where the risk for severe earthquakes is much lower than in nearby Umbria and Abruzzo, albeit it is more vulnerable than Florence. Notable earthquakes are still a rare phenomenon in the province, with a 4.6 quake 25 kilometres to its north-east that claimed no lives on 26 November 2001 the exception. Under the Köppen climate classification Arezzo is either a humid subtropical climate or an oceanic climate, having traditionally leaned towards the latter, it has uncharacteristically hot summer days for a maritime climate, with the lows moderating the average temps and bringing it to sit right on the border with subtropical. The Piazza Grande is
Moors
The term "Moors" refers to the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula and Malta during the Middle Ages. The Moors were the indigenous Maghrebine Berbers; the name was also applied to Arabs. Moors are not a distinct or self-defined people, the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica observed that "The term'Moors' has no real ethnological value." Europeans of the Middle Ages and the early modern period variously applied the name to Arabs, North African Berbers, Muslim Europeans. The term has been used in Europe in a broader, somewhat derogatory sense to refer to Muslims in general those of Arab or Berber descent, whether living in Spain or North Africa. During the colonial era, the Portuguese introduced the names "Ceylon Moors" and "Indian Moors" in South Asia and Sri Lanka, the Bengali Muslims were called Moors. In the Philippines, the longstanding Muslim community, which predates the arrival of the Spanish, now self-identifies as the "Moro people", an exonym introduced by Spanish colonizers due to their Muslim faith.
In 711, troops formed by Moors from northern Africa led the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. The Iberian peninsula came to be known in Classical Arabic as al-Andalus, which at its peak included most of Septimania and modern-day Spain and Portugal. In 827, the Moors occupied Mazara on Sicily, they went on to consolidate the rest of the island. Differences in religion and culture led to a centuries-long conflict with the Christian kingdoms of Europe, which tried to reclaim control of Muslim areas. In 1224 the Muslims were expelled from Sicily to the settlement of Lucera, destroyed by European Christians in 1300; the fall of Granada in 1492 marked the end of Muslim rule in Iberia, although a Muslim minority persisted until their expulsion in 1609. During the classical period, the Romans interacted with, conquered, parts of Mauretania, a state that covered modern northern Morocco, western Algeria, the Spanish cities Ceuta and Melilla; the Berber tribes of the region were noted in the Classics as Mauri, subsequently rendered as "Moors" in English and in related variations in other European languages.
Mauri is recorded as the native name by Strabo in the early 1st century. This appellation was adopted into Latin, whereas the Greek name for the tribe was Maurusii; the Moors were mentioned by Tacitus as having revolted against the Roman Empire in 24 AD. During the Latin Middle Ages, Mauri was used to refer to Berbers and Arabs in the coastal regions of Northwest Africa; the 16th century scholar Leo Africanus identified the Moors as the native Berber inhabitants of the former Roman Africa Province. He described Moors as one of five main population groups on the continent alongside Egyptians, Abyssinians and Cafri. In medieval Romance languages, variations of the Latin word for the Moors developed different applications and connotations; the term denoted a specific Berber people in western Libya, but the name acquired more general meaning during the medieval period, associated with "Muslim", similar to associations with "Saracens". During the context of the Crusades and the Reconquista, the term Moors included the derogatory suggestion of "infidels".
Apart from these historic associations and context and Moorish designate a specific ethnic group speaking Hassaniya Arabic. They inhabit Mauritania and parts of Algeria, Western Sahara, Morocco and Mali. In Niger and Mali, these peoples are known as the Azawagh Arabs, after the Azawagh region of the Sahara; the authoritative dictionary of the Spanish language does not list any derogatory meaning for the word moro, a term referring to people of Maghrebian origin in particular or Muslims in general. Some authors have pointed out that in modern colloquial Spanish use of the term moro is derogatory for Moroccans in particular and Muslims in general. In the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, many modern Filipinos call the large, local Muslim minority concentrated in Mindanao and other southern islands Moros; the word is a catch-all term, as Moro may come from several distinct ethno-linguistic groups such as the Maranao people. The term was introduced by Spanish colonisers, has since been appropriated by Filipino Muslims as an endonym, with many self-identifying as members of the Bangsamoro "Moro Nation".
Moreno can mean "dark-skinned" in Spain, Portugal and the Philippines. In Spanish, morapio is a humorous name for "wine" that which has not been "baptized" or mixed with water, i.e. pure unadulterated wine. Among Spanish speakers, moro came to have a broader meaning, applied to both Filipino Moros from Mindanao, the moriscos of Granada. Moro refers to all things dark, as in "Moor", etc, it was used as a nickname. In Portugal, mouro may refer to supernatural beings known as enchanted moura, where "Moor" implies "alien" and "non-Christian"; these beings were siren-like fairies with a fair face. They were believed to have magical properties. From this root, the name moor is applied to unbaptized children. In Basque, mairu means moor and refers to a mythical people. Muslims located in South Asia were distinguished by the Portuguese historians into two groups: Mouros da Terra and the Mouros da Arabia/Mouros de Meca ("Moors from Arabia/Mecca" or "Paradesi
Perugia
Perugia is the capital city of both the region of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the river Tiber, of the province of Perugia. The city is located about 164 kilometres north of 148 km southeast of Florence, it covers a high part of the valleys around the area. The region of Umbria is bordered by Tuscany and Marche; the history of Perugia goes back to the Etruscan period. The city is known as the universities town, with the University of Perugia founded in 1308, the University for Foreigners, some smaller colleges such as the Academy of Fine Arts "Pietro Vannucci" public athenaeum founded in 1573, the Perugia University Institute of Linguistic Mediation for translators and interpreters, the Music Conservatory of Perugia, founded in 1788, other institutes. Perugia is a well-known cultural and artistic centre of Italy; the city hosts multiple annual festivals and events, e.g. the Eurochocolate Festival, the Umbria Jazz Festival, the International Journalism Festival, is associated with multiple notable people in the arts.
The famous painter Pietro Vannucci, nicknamed Perugino, was a native of Città della Pieve, near Perugia. He decorated the local Sala del Cambio with a beautiful series of frescoes. Perugino was the teacher of Raphael, the great Renaissance artist who produced five paintings in Perugia and one fresco. Another famous painter, lived in Perugia. Galeazzo Alessi is the most famous architect from Perugia; the city's symbol is the griffin, which can be seen in the form of plaques and statues on buildings around the city. Perugia was an Umbrian settlement but first appears in written history as Perusia, one of the 12 confederate cities of Etruria. Fabius Pictor's account, utilized by Livy, of the expedition carried out against the Etruscan League by Fabius Maximus Rullianus in 310 or 309 BC. At that time a thirty-year indutiae was agreed upon. In 216 and 205 BC it assisted Rome in the Second Punic War but afterwards it is not mentioned until 41–40 BC, when Lucius Antonius took refuge there, was reduced by Octavian after a long siege, its senators sent to their death.
A number of lead bullets used by slingers have been found around the city. The city was burnt, we are told, with the exception of the temples of Vulcan and Juno—the massive Etruscan terrace-walls can hardly have suffered at all—and the town, with the territory for a mile round, was allowed to be occupied by whoever chose, it must have been rebuilt at once, for several bases for statues exist, inscribed Augusto sacr Perusia restituta. Vibius Trebonianus Gallus, it is hardly mentioned except by the geographers until it was the only city in Umbria to resist Totila, who captured it and laid the city waste in 547, after a long siege after the city's Byzantine garrison evacuated. Negotiations with the besieging forces fell to the city's bishop, Herculanus, as representative of the townspeople. Totila is said to have ordered the bishop to be beheaded. St. Herculanus became the city's patron saint. In the Lombard period Perugia is spoken of as one of the principal cities of Tuscia. In the 9th century, with the consent of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, it passed under the popes.
In 1186 Henry VI, rex romanorum and future emperor, granted diplomatic recognition to the consular government of the city. On various occasions the popes found asylum from the tumults of Rome within its walls, it was the meeting-place of five conclaves, including those that elected Honorius III, Clement IV, Celestine V, Clement V, but Perugia had no mind to subserve the papal interests and never accepted papal sovereignty: the city used to exercise a jurisdiction over the members of the clergy, moreover in 1282 Perugia was excommunicated due to a new military offensive against the Ghibellines regardless of a papal prohibition. On the other hand, side by side with the 13th century bronze griffin of Perugia above the door of the Palazzo dei Priori stands, as a Guelphic emblem, the lion, Perugia remained loyal for the most part to the Guelph party in the struggles of Guelphs and Ghibellines; however this dominant tendency was rather an Italian political strategy. The Angevin presence in Italy appeared to offer a counterpoise to papal powers: in 1319 Perugia declared the Angevin Saint Louis of Toulouse "Protector of the city's sovereignty and of the Palazzo of its Priors" and set his figure among the other patron saints above the rich doorway of the Palazzo dei P
Lusterware
Lusterware or Lustreware is a type of pottery or porcelain with a metallic glaze that gives the effect of iridescence, produced by metallic oxides in an overglaze finish, given a second firing at a lower temperature in a "muffle kiln", reduction kiln, which excludes oxygen. Lustre decoration was first used as a glass-painting technique. While some scholars see this as a purely Islamic invention originating in Fustat, others place the origins of lustre decoration in Roman and Coptic Egypt during the centuries preceding the rise of Islam. Staining glass vessels with copper and silver pigments was known from around the 3rd century AD, although true lustre technology began sometime between the 4th and 8th centuries AD. Lustre glazes were applied to pottery in Mesopotamia in the 9th century. In the Great Mosque of Kairouan, the upper part of the mihrab is adorned with polychrome and monochrome lusterware tiles. Islam forbade the use of precious metal dishes and vessels for eating, normal for pre-Islamic elites, there was therefore a market for elaborate and expensive glass and ceramic equivalents.
The reminiscence of shining metal gold, made lustreware attractive. Lusterware was produced in quantity in Egypt during the Fatimid dynasty in the 10th–12th centuries. While the production of lusterware continued in the Middle East, it spread to Europe through Al-Andalus. Málaga was the first centre of Hispano-Moresque ware, before it developed in the region of Valencia, to Italy, where it was used to enhance maiolica. In the 16th century lustred maiolica was a specialty of Gubbio, noted for a rich ruby red, at Deruta. After a gap of several centuries in Persian production, it was revived in the Safavid period from about the 1630s, in a rather different style producing small pieces with designs in a dark copper colour over a dark blue background. Unlike other Persian wares of the period, these use traditional Middle Eastern shapes and decoration rather than Chinese-inspired ones, do not take their shapes from metalware. Designs featured plant forms and animals, flowed over the whole surface taking up over half the surface area.
Production, never large, appears to have been from about 1650 to 1750, but with rather inferior wares produced into the 19th century. It is thought to have been centred in Kirman, though firm evidence is lacking. Metallic lustre of another sort produced English lustreware, which imparts to a piece of pottery the appearance of an object of silver, gold or copper. Silver lustre employed the new metal platinum, whose chemical properties were analyzed towards the end of the 18th century, John Hancock of Hanley invented the application of a platinum technique, "put it in practice at Mr Spode's manufactory, for Messrs. Daniels and Brown", about 1800. Dilute amounts of powdered gold or platinum were dissolved in aqua regia and added to spirits of tar for platinum and a mixture of turpentine, flowers of sulfur and linseed oil for gold; the mixture was applied to the glazed ware and fired in an enameling kiln, depositing a thin film of platinum or gold. Platinum produced the appearance of solid silver, was employed for the middle class in shapes identical to those uses for silver tea services, ca.
1810-1840. Depending on the concentration of gold in the lustring compound and the under slip on which it was applied, a range of colours could be achieved, from pale rose and lavender, to copper and gold; the gold lustre could be painted or stenciled on the ware, or it could be applied in the resist technique, in which the background was solidly lustred, the design remained in the body color. In the resist technique, similar to batik, the design was painted in glue and size in a glycerin or honey compound, the lustre applied by dipping, the resist washed off before the piece was fired. Lustreware became popular in Staffordshire pottery during the 19th century, where it was used by Josiah Wedgwood, who introduced pink and white lustreware simulating mother o' pearl effects in dishes and bowls cast in the shapes of shells, silver lustre, introduced at Wedgwood in 1805. In 1810 Peter Warburton of New Hall patented a method of transfer-printing in gold and silver lustre. Sunderland Lustreware in the North East is renowned for its mottled pink lustreware, lustreware was produced in Leeds, where the technique may have been introduced by Thomas Lakin.
Wedgwood's lusterware made in the 1820s spawned the production of mass quantities of copper and silver lustreware in England and Wales. Cream pitchers with appliqué-detailed spouts and meticulously applied handles were most common, featured stylized decorative bands in dark blue, cream yellow, and, most rare, dark green and purple. Raised, multicolored patterns depicting pastoral scenes were created, sand was sometimes incorporated into the glaze to add texture. Pitchers were produced in a range of sizes from cream pitchers to large milk pitchers, as well as small coffeepots and teapots. Tea sets came a bit usually featuring creamers, sugar bowls, slop bowls. Large pitchers with transfer printed commemorative scenes appear to have arrived around the middle of the 19th century; these were purely decorative and today command high prices because of their historical connections. Delicate lustre imitating mother-of-pearl was produced by Wedgwood and at Belleek in the mid-century, derived from bismuth nitrate.
Under the impetus of the Aesthetic Movement, William de Morgan revived lustrewares in a manner drawing
