Ceramic collection Alfonso Tafuri

The museum

The private collection of Tafuri ceramics is located in the characteristicwidth CassavecchiaOn the ground floor of the 18th century Mancuso Palace.

Opened in 1987, the small museum collects ceramic objects found in Salerno during excavations for the restoration of public and private buildings, during road works or even among the waste produced by the construction sites. The whole collection has been patiently collected over the years sinceAlfonso Tafuri,and passionate about conservation and restoration.

The museum’s premises were recovered in the 1970s by Tafuri himself after they had had several uses, the last one being coal storage and carpentry. Today the collection of ceramics is welcomed in small environments covered by times of different types, paved withlava stone polesandcooked by Rufoli’from the furnaces of Ogliara.

The collection

The exhibition is divided into sections. In the first windows is exposed the material recovered in the historical center of Salerno. Following is a rich collection ofreggiole, terracotta tiles painted by hand of the 18th century Neapolitan and the 19th century Vietnamese, of vasellame and uterus of local production and Vietnamese of the nineteenth century and of more ancient finds, dating back to the fourteenth century. There are also mouths, jarretelles, dishes and other objects from the productions of Giffoni Valle Piana and Cerreto Sannita.

Follow the section dedicated to the collectionplates and devotional panelsand works of the so-called“German period”of Vietnamese ceramics, when, between 1920 and 1947, some artists from northern Europe (Germany, Holland, Poland) arrived in Amalfi Coast and settled in Vietri sul Mare, fascinated by the place and the ceramic tradition.

Among foreign artists there areRichard Doelker, Irene Kowaliska, Margareta Hannash and Gunther Studemannbut also many local artists who, stimulated by this bricious current of renewal, became very skilled in this type of production such as Guido Gambone, Giovannino Carrano, Vincenzo Procida, Enzo Rispoli and Andrea D’Arienzo.

To discover

– Riggiole

Polished and decorated entirely by hand with geometric, naturalistic, mosaic, marble or wood motifs, the riggiole are in a square shape with the mark of the origin factory on the back. There are numerous specimens attributable to Neapolitan families, such as Giustiniani, Chianese, Del Vecchio, Women and Stingus, and Vietnamese, such as Tajani, Punzi and Sperandeo.

– The devotional plates

Among the most recurring subjects are saints particularly present in local worship (San Francesco da Paola, Sant’Antonio Abate, San Michele arcangelo, San Vincenzo Ferreri, San Francesco d’Assisi) and especially the Madonna with or without Child, and other characters, according to the canonical iconographic tradition (Madonna del Carmine , Immacolata, Addolorata).

Curiosity / to know

– A’ riggiola

The riggiole, from the Neapolitan ‘a riggiola, were terracotta tiles that could be both maiolicate and hand painted.
The use was mainly in paving and covering walls in houses, churches, chapels and convents.
Even today the worker responsible for laying tiles or tiles in Neapolitan is called or ‘rejoined.

– An ancient repertoire

The oldest repertoire of the entire collection is a spiral wave ceramic fragment.
The production of this type of ceramic begins around the middle of the 12th century and then becomes fully established in the 13th century. The decoration consists of four spirals in green ramina and brown manganese. The production is widespread on the Tyrrhenian coast of southern Italy, especially in Lazio, Campania and Sicily, but also in Carthage, on the island of Malta and in Israel.