Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/511

 9*s. vm. DEO. 2i, MCI.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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acts, ' The Lazar's Grave,' and ' Scripture Concurrence,' which are not in the library. The notices of Edmund Henry Faucit Saville as an actor and manager are very numerous but never have I seen an allusion to his authorship till now as a conjectural author of ' Sweeny Todd.' There is a portrait of him as Hamish M*Tavish in ' Military Punish- ment' in the Theatrical Times, 29 August, 1846. But he had by his second wife a daughter Harriet, and a son whose name I do not know, and who from lameness did not go on the stage, but had some literary ability and wrote several novels and plays ; he died when about twenty-five years old. Possibly he is the prolific writer confused with his better-known father, uncles, and grandfather. Any further particulars of him would be welcome. There are no entries in the British Museum Catalogue of novels or plays under mentioned. AYEAHR. New Cross, S.E.
 * Faucit ' to guide us beyond the above-

WE must request correspondents desiring infor uiation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers maybe addressed to them direct.

MAJOLICAN BACINI ON OLD CHURCHES AT PISA AND ELSEWHERE. Is it possible to get any definite information in regard to the origin of the bacini or piatti, of apparently a rude kind of majolica, which are to be seen incrusted on the exterior walls and campanili of many old churches in Pisa and other places in Tuscany? They occur on at least six churches in Pisa sometimes on the fagades and walls, quite as often on the brick cam- panili sometimes perfect, in other places greatly damaged, while not unfrequently, a number are missing in a row or other series ; and probably they once existed on many churches or parts of churches where, from restoration or rebuilding or the injuries of the weather, they have now entirely dis- appeared. They are not, I think, often noticed by travellers, being for the most part either very inconspicuous from their smallness or the height at which they are placed (as on the facade of S. Sisto and the campanile of S. Francesco), or found on churches which lie quite away from the main points of interest in Pisa, and are not seen at all by the ordinary tourist. These bacini also occur on several old churches in the neighbourhood of Pisa, and are, perhaps, seen to the best advantage on the interesting

and curious church of S. Piero a Grado (perhaps tenth century), about three miles to the south-west of the city and near the site of its ancient harbour, where, however, while on one side of the building they are still almost intact, on the other little remains but the cavities which once contained them. I have also seen them at San Gimignano, and on the red-brick fagade of a deserted church in Certaldo ; while they are reported as also to be seen in other parts of Italy.

These bacini, in shape not unlike the modern scodella or soup-plate, are sometimes monochrpmic, a rich chocolate red and sea- green being favourite colours; others show a number of fantastic designs on grounds of various col ours conventional flower patterns, birds, ships, &c. though it is generally diffi- cult to get near enough to them to make out these designs quite distinctly. They appear to have little artistic merit, but might well seem precious at the time these churches were built, when such things were new and strange in Italy. The archives of Pisa appear to be quite barren of any documents which would bear on the question of their origin ; but a popular tradition assigns their appear- ance in Pisa to the time of the Pisan conquest of Majorca (1116), when, it is asserted, they formed a part of the precious booty the conquerors brought back with them, and were placed on these churches as trophies of their victory over the infidel.

The only references of any importance to these bacini known to me are in Marryat

History of Pottery and Porcelain,' London, 1857, p. 12) and in G. Rohault de Fleury

Les Monuments de Pise au Moyen Age/

iris, 1866, p. 158), both of whom refer to the popular tradition of their origin, the atter inclining apparently to the view that if lot actually Spanish or Moorish work, they point to the existence of a Pisan school of )ottery in the twelfth century, which was )ased on Hispano-Moorish models. The fact hat similar bacini are, so it is said, found

milarly placed on old churches in other >arts of Italy e.g., at Pa via and other towns >f Lombardy might, on the other hand, point -ather to the view that they formed a more ^ less general decorative element at a certain architectural period, though, of course, the fashion may still have been set here in Pisa.

The question has a certain interest and .niportance from the fact that it is now generally believed that the Italians origin- ally learnt from Spanish or Moorish work- men who settled in Italy (probably including nany from Majorcan factories) those secrets >f the art which they afterwards used with