barganews/2014/04/02/della-robbia/ There are a number of legends in Barga which are somewhat difficult to sort out the truth from the fact and fiction. One or two of them have to do with one particular group of people - the della Robbia family from Firenze. Barga is quite a small city but it does have a large number of decorated terracotta works which are attributed to various members of the dynasty of these important pottery artists. One of the legends is that della Robbia had a kiln here in the city where their precious art works were fired. There are documents which state that the kiln was situated in Fornacetta just outside the city but no real proof one way or the other has ever been found. Presumably they would also have used locally dug clay for their terracotta pieces and in fact just above Fornacetta there is an area known for centuries as Terra Rossa – red earth – could this have been where Luca della Robbia or members of his family dug their red clay ?
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 13:13:30 +0000