Raffaela Carta’s book Italian ceramics in the Alhambra, with a prologue by Professor Antonio Malpica Cuello of the University of Granada, deals with the Italian ceramics of the collection of the Alhambra Museum. This is the result of an exhaustive research work of the collection, extraordinarily rich from the historical and artistic point of view.
There was not any information of the existence of Italian pottery in such a privileged context as that of the Alhambra, although it could be supposed that the palace was permeable to the introduction of foreign materials, but until the moment there were not material proofs.
According to Professor Malpica Cuello, “Raffaella Carta´s work has focused, in a first moment, on the inspection of the collection of the Alhambra Museum and the examination of such materials thanks to her experience in the field of Italian Post-Medieval Archaeology.
The ceramics come from the most renowned Italian potter centres of the Renaissance, such as Geneva, Savona, Montelupo Fiorentino and Deruta. In a second phase, her work has essentially focused on the detailed cataloguing, both formal and typological, of these ceramics, to finally interweave these potter findings in the context of modern Granada”.
This is one of the most outstanding aspects, as the author has carried out an important effort to transcend the material sphere and confer to these ceramics the historical and economical value the deserve. The study contributes new data about the social and economical context of the Alhambra and the city of Granada and its trade flows.
According to Professor Malpica Cuello, director of Raffaela Carta’s work, “this book is inserted in a research line open by the author, tending towards the carrying out her doctoral thesis titled Italian ceramics in the city of Granada between the Late Medium Ages and the first Modern Age. Fruit of this work several papers have been published in national and international journals and conferences”.
The author of this book, Raffaella Carta, was born in Roma (Italy) and graduated in Medieval Archaeology by the University of Rome La Sapienza in the academic course 1997-1998. She devoted her degree work to the study of “Renaissance wall tiles in Sardinia”. At present she lives in Granada and holds a research scholarship of the Ministry of Education and Culture in the Department of Medieval History of the University of Granada and she belongs to the research group “Toponymy, History and Archaeology of the kingdom of Granada of this University and directed by Antonio Malpica Cuello, professor of Medieval Archaeology. She moved to Granada due to her interest of the peninsular Mediterranean area in the analysis of Post-Medieval Italian pottery, as this way it is possible to observe the commercial side of these materials in the Modern Age.
Reference: Professor Raffaella Carta
Dpt. Medieval History