A Physical and Chemical Multi-Method Approach to Study and Characterise Fragments of Renaissance Pottery

The analytical characterization was performed of six separate 15-16th century pottery fragments found in the “Chancery” excavations in Rome. On the basis of the find site and the available historical evidence, it is likely that they were not exclusively of local manufacture but also originated in other neighbouring zones. Typological-style analysis enabled us to identify at least three different types of artefact: Roman production (fragments numbers 2 and 4), Roman production influenced by Montelupo (fragment number 6) and Deruta production (fragment number 3); samples numbers 1 and 2 apparently come from fragments that cannot be attributed with certainty to any of the three types. One further distinction may be made concerning the use to which these artifacts were put: samples no. 1 and 2 were terracotta objects in common use, while the other samples, fragments of enameled plates, had a more sophisticated use. For these reasons it was reasonable to assume that they also had a different mineralogical composition due to the use of raw materials that different at least partially from one sample to the next.