We have no account of the precise date at which the Pellipario, afterwards Fontana, family came from Castel Durante and settled at Urbino, but we have documentary proof that “Guido Niccolai Pellipario figulo da Durante,” or “Guido, son of Nicola Pellipario, potter of Durante,” was established at Urbino in 1520. From this period through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a number of pieces are dated and signed by various artists, or as having been made in the boteghe of various maestri of Urbino. We are obliged to refer the reader to the large catalogue, in detail, of the South Kensington collection of maiolica, for an account of the works of the more important of these artists under their respective names, beginning with Nicola as the earliest of whom we have known examples; the Fontana family, and of Guido Durantino; the works of Fra Xanto; of Francesco Durantino; of the Patanazzi; not omitting those of other artists of the fabrique, of whom we have smaller record in remaining examples or documentary history. There seems little doubt that the revival or perhaps the first introduction of artistic ceramic manufacture to Urbino was under the influence of Guidobaldo I., and that many of the potters and nearly all the more important artists immigrated from Castel Durante. Long lists of names have been published by Raffaelli, but it is difficult to distinguish between the more ordinary potters and the artists, whose works we are unable to recognise from the absence of signed specimens. Our space here will allow us to do little more than mention their names. Considerable uncertainty exists and some confusion has arisen among connoisseurs in respect to the works of the very able artist Nicola da Urbino, and as to his connection with the Fontana family and fabrique at Urbino, the latter still a disputed and undecided question; as also to the marks on various pieces attributable to his hand only, but which have been assigned by M. Jacquemart to the fabrique of Ferrara, and by other writers to various painters and localities. There are no pieces marked or signed by this artist in the South Kensington museum, but it possesses some examples of his work. A certain similarity in some of his less careful pieces has caused them, not unfrequently, to be attributed to Xanto, but a closer study of his manner will show it to be really very distinct. The first signed piece is in the British museum, a plate, representing a sacrifice to Diana, and inscribed on the reverse as in the opposite woodcut. Comparing this mark with those of the Gonzaga-Este service, Mr. Franks arrived at the conclusion that they also were painted by Nicola in his most careful manner; the clue thus found, he ingeniously deciphered the monogram on the beautiful fragment in the Sauvageot collection painted with a group from the Parnassus of Raffaelle, as clearly and unmistakably by the same hand.