flannel, then with another dry piece and some ashes (of wood) give them a gentle rubbing, which will develope all their beauty. “This is all, as it appears to me, that can be said about the maiolica, as also about the other colours and mixtures that are required in this art.” CHAPTER VII. We have given in the last chapter a very brief abstract or epitome of the interesting manuscript of Piccolpasso, which offers us a perfect idea of the manner and comparatively simple appliances under which the beautiful examples of the potter’s art were produced in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The _rationale_ of these processes is clear enough and requires no comment; but we may perhaps remark that whereas the fixing of the glaze and colours in the ordinary process is merely produced by a degree of heat sufficient to liquefy and blend them, in the case of the metallic reflection a different effect is requisite, and different means adopted. The pigments consist partly of metallic salts, which being painted on the wares, after exposure to a simple heat for some time, have then directed upon their glowing surface the heated smoke given off by the fagots of broom; this smoke being in fact carbon in a finely divided state has great power, at a high temperature, of reducing metals from their salts; painted on the wares these are thereby decomposed, leaving a thin coat of mixed metal, varying in colour and iridescence from admixture with the glaze and other causes, and producing the beautiful effects so well known. The various names by which the Italian pottery of the renaissance has been known have in some instances arisen from, as they have also led to, error. “Faenza ware,” doubtless, had its origin from the town of that name, although its French equivalent “faïence” may either be a translation of the Italian, or may be derived from a town in Provence, called “Faiance” or “Fayence,” a few miles from Cannes and Fréjus, where potteries are stated to have existed from an early period. “Urbino ware” and “Umbrian ware” explain themselves as connected with those important sites of the manufacture, while the name of “Raffaelle ware” was doubtless derived from the subjects after his designs, with which so many pieces were painted, and from the grotesques after his manner. A very beautiful drawing of his school, and which has been ascribed to Raffaelle’s own pencil, is in the royal collection at Windsor. It is for the border of a plate, and consists of a continuous circular group of amorini, dancing in the most graceful attitudes.