We are indebted for much that we know of this fabrique to Giambattista Passeri, who has striven to do all honour to his native country, and as its history was not written until nearly two centuries after its establishment, we must make allowances for his amour propre. Many of the pieces of ancient style with yellow metallic lustre, formerly attributed to Pesaro, are now by common consent referred to Deruta.

          Passeri quotes a certain Joannis a Bocalibus of Forli, who in 1396 established himself at Pesaro. In 1462 mention is made of the loan of a large sum for the enlargement of a manufactory of vessels. The borrowers, Ventura di Mastro, Simone da Siena of the Casa Piccolomini, and Matteo di Raniere of Cagli, bought in the following year a considerable quantity of sand ” du lac de Perouse,” which entered into the composition of fayence. To this date Passeri places the introduction of the manufacture of maiolica.

          In 1546, an edict was passed in favour of Pesaro by Jean Sforza, forbidding the introduction from other fabriques of any but common vessels for oil and water. To the same effect were two other edicts of 1508 and 1532, and another by Guido Ubaldo in 1552; in this last the potters of Pesaro, Mo. Bernardino Gagliardino, Mo. Girolamo Lanfranchi, and Mo. Rinaldo, “vasari et boccalari,” engage to supply the town and country with vases, and pieces painted with historical subjects, under certain conditions. Mr. Gironimo, the vase-maker, who signs the plates in the margin (page 77), is probably the Girolamo Lanfranchi here mentioned. His son Giacomo succeeded him, who in 1562 invented the application of gold to maiolica, fixed by fire.

          Another corroboration of Passeri’s statement, and of the importance of the Lanfranchi establishment, occurs in an anonymous document published by the Marquis Giuseppe Campori (Notizie della majolica e della porcellana di Ferrara). It is preserved among the archives of Modena, and is dated Pesaro, 26th October, 1660. It relates how the Duke of Modena had been entertained at the house of the Signora Contessa Violante, “con tutta quella domestichezza,” which he desired. How he was presented with six bacili filled with delicacies made by the nuns, sent to him by the daughters of the Countess, and which were kept in the dishes. That some of his family wishing to buy majoliche painted by Raffaelle of Urbino, a great quantity of bacili and tazzoni was brought to them, not by 4 Raffaelle, but painted by a certain ancient professor of that kind of painting denominated “il Gabiccio”—” le furono portate gran quantita di bacili e di tazzoni o fruttere, non già de Raffaelle ma dipinti da un tale antico Professore di tali pitture denominato it Gabiccio,” who, as the Marquis Campori suggests, was probably that Girolamo di Lanfranchi, the maestro of the establishment at the Gabice. It then goes on to relate that these dealers in antiquities, like some of their brethren of the present day, asked too much money, to wit, a hundred doble for a rinfrescatore or cistern ; certainly well painted, but for which they offered twelve, and that they only succeeded in acquiring another rinfrescatore, and a large turtle that would serve as a basin or a dish, painted with grotesques and figures on the bowl and cover, for which they paid twenty-one doble. The Marquis Campori observes that the cover of this tartaruga was sold not long since in Modena to an amateur, and when last in Florence the writer learnt that such a piece was then in the hands of Signor Rusca of that city. He had himself seen at Rome the lower portion of a large turtle or tortoise shaped dish in the Palazzo Barberini, which may perchance belong to the cover in Florence, or be the other half of a similar piece.