ikely that he would care to expose
it to any risks that could be avoided. The risks of the lustre process
were inordinately great--Piccolpasso says, "Frequently only six pieces
were good out of a hundred"--so that its use was relegated only to
inferior wares, and then the process was relinquished and forgotten
until its rediscovery in the second half of the 19th century.

The history of the development of these noble wares is by no means
clear, nor is it always certain what part was played by each town in the
successive inventions of technical methods, decoration and colouring, so
that it is better, in such a general sketch as this, to treat the
subject in its broadest features only. In the earlier painted wares the
only colours used were manganese-purple and a transparent copper-green
as on the mezza-majolica, but early in the 15th century cobalt-blue was
added to the palette, and, later on, the strong yellow antimoniate of
lead, mixed with iron. The decorations at this period were largely
influenced by the wares imported from Persia, Syria, Egypt and Spain,
specimens of which were so prized as to be used for the decoration of
church fronts and the facades of public buildings. The lustre of the
Saracenic wares was not yet understood, but its place was taken first by
manganese and afterwards by yellow. The designs were chiefly
conventional flower-patterns in the Persian or Moorish style,
arabesques, and floral scrolls, the ground being filled at times with
those tiny spirals, scrolls and dots to which the Eastern potters were
so partial. Figures, human and animal, were introduced either among the
formal ornament or only sundered from it by panels, of which the
outlines often followed the contours of the central design (see the
early 15th-century Faenza piece, Plate VI.). The figures were, in fact,
drawn to conform to the outline of the vessel, and not the vessel made
to display the figure-subject as in the majolica of the succeeding
century. The earliest dated example of this period is the pavement laid
down in the Caracciolo chapel in the church of San Giovanni a Carbonara,
in Naples, about 1440. Specimens of these tiles may be seen in the
British Museum, and from their style it has been suggested that they
were made by some Spanish potters brought over to Naples by Queen
Joanna, who was of the royal house of Aragon. To this period also have
been referred the large ovoid jars made to contain drugs or confections,
and d