The types of pottery made are as diverse as the many regions of Italy. Towns like Deruta and Campania are known for their pots, jars and bowls as well as their intense ceramic art. In Rome, as the country’s most famous city, pedestals and columns abound as do table bases and platters that evoke memories of the Empire at its most powerful and wealthy.

While Italy is as famous as Greece for its architecture, its pottery often is more ornate, intricate and complex. The process of sustaining a thriving pottery industry has been no small feat. Throughout its history of political and economic turmoil, invasions and occupations, Italy’s pottery and pottery artisans have remained mainstays.

In American colonial times, wealthy merchants secured a combination of Spanish pottery and Italian pottery as status symbols. One restaurant in Philadelphia still has colonial era pottery on display as a relic of the past and a window into what the upstart early Americans considered enduring indicators of wealth. Much of the pottery they have on display is Italian, early French and Spanish.