The kingdom of VALENCIA in the time of the Romans was noted for its works in pottery; those produced at Saguntum, the present Murviedro, having a great reputation at that period according to Pliny, who mentions the jasper red pottery of Saguntum where 1,200 workmen were employed. To these, after the occupation of the Goths, succeeded the Arab workmen who accompanied the Mussulman conquest in 711. Again, when the Moors were in 1239 subjected to Christian domination the potters’ art was considered of sufficient importance to claim a special charter from the king, who granted it to the _Saracens_ of Xativa, a small town now called San-Felipe. This charter provides that every master potter making vases, domestic vessels, tiles, “rajolas” (an Arabic name for wall-tiles, synonymous with “azulejos”), should pay a “besant” annually and freely pursue his calling. Sir Wm. Drake in his notes on Venetian ceramics cites an ordinance of the Venetian senate in 1455, declaring that no earthenware works of any kind should be introduced into the dominions of the Signory except crucibles (“_correzzoli_”) and _Majolica of Valencia_; an important fact proving the value that was attached to the Spanish lustre wares in Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. The woodcut p. 81 represents a fine plateau at South Kensington, golden lustred; of about the year 1500. Marineo Siculo, writing in 1517, devotes a chapter to the utensils and other objects of faience made in Spain, in which he states that “the most esteemed are those of Valencia, which are so well worked and so well gilded;” and Capmany records a decree of the municipal council of Barcelona in 1528 relative to the exportation of faience to Sicily and elsewhere, in which “la loza de Valencia” is named. Again Barreyros a Portuguese, in his “Chorographia,” praising the pottery of Barcelona says that it is “even superior” to that of Valencia. The expulsion of the Moors in 1610 by Philip III. gave the fatal blow to this industry, as we learn from contemporary authors that many of the banished artizans were potters (“olleros”). From time immemorial St. John the evangelist has been particularly venerated at Valencia, and in the grand processions of Corpus Christi the emblematic eagle is carried, holding in his beak a banderole on which is inscribed the first sentence of his gospel: “_In principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum._” On some pieces of Hispano-moresque ware this sentence is inscribed, and the eagle sometimes covers the front, sometimes the back. There is therefore reason to infer that these were made in one of the fabriques of Valencia, and if so their style would be to a considerable extent typical of the Valencian pottery. The decoration was probably inspired by the wares of Malaga, and it is likely that many of the pieces of the fifteenth century, bearing inscriptions in Gothic characters with animals, &c. in blue, may be of this fabrique. [Illustration]