A hand rests on the rim of a large terracotta jar, with more pots ranged along a table and the arched mouth of the kiln behind.

Handmade objects and craftsmanship

Terracotta

Terracotta is earth, simply: the red clay that central Tuscany has given up in abundance for centuries, and that has clad the roofs, the floors, the gardens and the kitchens of half of Italy. It has the colour of warm blood once fired, a full sound if you rap it with your knuckles, a weight that speaks of the work that went into it. It is a humble and very ancient craft that at a certain point in Tuscan history became a recognised excellence, and has remained one.

Terracotta jars ranged under a lean-to roof and beside the doorways of a stone village street, with hills in the distance.

Where

Where it is practised in Tuscany

The hands that practise it have a clear capital: Impruneta, in the province of Firenze, and its hill territory. Here the clay withstands high-temperature firing, and it produces an object resistant to frost that has clad the roofs of half of Renaissance Firenze. The Terracotta dell'Impruneta denomination has institutional protection, and the historic kilns still in operation have often been working for four or five generations. It is also practised in the Siena area (around Petroio, where the potter is an old popular tradition) and in limited areas of the Pisa and Pistoia countryside, where local clay fed domestic production.

A block of red clay in a cloth sack beside a plaster mould, loop tools, ribs, a rasp, a wooden mallet and a coil of rope.

How

The techniques of the craft

The techniques define different families of product. The garden pot — orcio, conca, lemon-tree tub — is still worked today on large wheels or with plaster moulds that reproduce historic models. Cotto floors are made from pressed or extruded bodies fired slowly over several days. Garden statues follow genuinely sculptural procedures, modelled by hand or reproduced from antique moulds. The firing is the decisive moment: the kilns of Impruneta reach 1000 degrees, and the right temperature is the one that gives cotto its resistance to cold. The finishes are made with roller stamps, freehand decoration and painted shading.

A craftsman works the rim of a large terracotta jar among shelves loaded with pots, the arched kiln standing at the back.

Now

The craft today

Doing it today means being in a strange market. On one side there is a steady demand for real terracotta for historic gardens, fine villas and conservation work: anyone tending an Italian garden knows that a plastic pot is no substitute for an orcio. On the other there is the fierce competition of cheap industrial terracotta, often imported. The kilns of excellence live on qualified commissions, on restoration and on international export to countries (the United States, Japan, northern Europe) where Italian terracotta is a status symbol. It is a craft that weighs — literally — and that few young people choose.