Federigo, who succeeded to the Duchy of Urbino in 1444, was a patron of the arts and a great collector. After his death, in 1482, his son Guidobaldo continued Federigo’s patronage of the ceramic art. The introduction of the maiolica enamel did not, happily, lead to the abandonment of the metallic colors and prismatic glazes of the earlier potters. Authorities are agreed that the retention of these metallic colors and prismatic glazes stimulated maiolica manufacture in other localities. The botega which Maestro Giorgio established in Gubbio at this period was probably the great center for the golden and ruby metallic lustre maiolica. In his handbook, “Maiolica,” Fortnum says: “Some technicality in the process of the manufacture, some local advantage, or some secret in the composition, almost a monopoly of its use was established at Gubbio, for we have the evidence of well-known examples that from the end of the first to the beginning of the last quarter of the fifteenth century many pieces painted by the artists of Pesaro, Urbino, and Castel Durante were taken there for the lustre embellishment.” In Urbino the manufacture of maiolica reached its culminating point in 1540, in which year Orazio Fontana, Urbino’s greatest maiolica artist, entered the service of the duke. From 1580 Urbino maiolica declined. There are exceptionally fine examples of early Italian maiolica in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in other public and private collections in America. These the collector may study to advantage. While the pieces of supreme importance, like the canvases of the old masters, are not to be had for a song, still, “finds” are possible, and even later pieces of maiolica are beautiful and fully worth while. Such pieces, too, with the interesting history of the earlier objects that inspired them, should appeal to the collector. Perhaps if Italian maiolica were more studied and understood in this country it would be more popular with collectors, but just because so few of them are versed in its evolution the advantage accrues to the collector who is wide awake enough to look about him in time. In passing it [Illustration: _Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_ Early Italian Maiolica Plates Pesaro, 1520-1535 Deruta, 16th Century Urbino, 16th Century Gubbio, 16th Century Castel Durante, 16th Century] [Illustration: _Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_ Copies of Roman Millefiori Glass Made in Murano, 19th Century Two Ancient Roman Millefiore Glass Bowls] should be noted that there is much--one may well say quantities--of modern maiolica to be found in the shops. Much of this is very beautiful, but the collector will soon have no trouble in distinguishing it from the old, even when the modern happens to reproduce the forms and designs of the early pieces. CHAPTER XXVII GLASS OF A THOUSAND FLOWERS