ten the colours--really to varnish them.
The word itself appears to have been derived from the name of the island
Majorca, and was originally applied by the Italians to the lustred wares
of Spain which were largely imported into Italy, probably arriving in
ships that called at or hailed from Majorca, as we do not believe that
the ware was actually made in that island. That the secret of the
tin-glaze, which is the essential feature of Italian majolica, was known
in Italy in the 13th century is practically proved; and there is both
literary and archaeological proof of its use there in the 14th. Mention
of it is made in the _Margarita Preciosa_ published at Pola by Pierre Le
Bon in 1336, and the well-known jug, bearing the arms of Astorgio I.,
discovered under the Manfredi palace at Faenza, must have been made
shortly after 1393. Its development marched side by side with that of
the mezza-majolica, until it practically superseded the latter for
painted wares in the 15th century; but the earliest examples have little
more than an archaeological interest, and it was only after the last
decade of the _quattrocento_ or the first of the _cinquecento_ that it
blossomed into an artistic creation. In its prime the production of
majolica was confined to a very small part of Italy. Bologna on the
north, Perugia to the south, Siena on the west, and the Adriatic to the
east, roughly enclose the district in which lie Faenza, Forli, Rimini,
Pesaro, Cafaggiolo, Urbino, Castel Durante, Gubbio, Perugia and Siena.
Towards the middle of the 16th century Venice on the one hand, and in
the 17th and 18th centuries the Ligurian factories at Genoa, Albissola
and Savona, made majolica of the later decadent styles, while, at the
end of the 17th and in the early part of the 18th centuries, the
southern town of Castelli, near Naples, produced a ware which closes the
period of artistic majolica.

[Illustration: PLATE I

FIG. 52.--CORINTHIAN JAR.

FIG. 53.--FRANCOIS VASE. (From Furtwangler and Reichhold, <i>Griechische
Vasenmalerei</i>, by permission of F. Bruckmann.)

FIG. 54.--BLACK-FIGURED AMPHORA BY EXEKIAS.

FIG. 55.--VASE FROM SOUTHERN ITALY. Signed by Python.]

[Illustration: PLATE II

FIG. 56.--BOWL MADE AT CALES IN IMITATION OF METAL. (2ND CENT. B.C.)

FIG. 57.--VASE OF 5TH CENT. B.C., MODELLED IN FORM OF HEAD.

FIG. 58.--VASE OF 6TH CENT. B.C., IN FORM OF HELMETED HEAD.

FIG. 59.--FLASK OF VITREOUS GLAZED WARE. (