Museo della Ceramica di Mondovì

In the grand rooms of a medieval-and-baroque palace on Mondovì's hilltop square, the Ceramics Museum traces the history of Mondovì's ceramics industry through a collection of more than 2,600 pieces.

Why it matters

Ceramics entered Mondovì's industrial history at the start of the nineteenth century: in 1805, on the initiative of the doctor Francesco Perotti, the production of fine earthenware was introduced in the city, and the second half of the century became the district's golden age, fixing for good the character of the celebrated 'Vecchia Mondovì' output. The museum, housed in Palazzo Fauzone di Germagnano, is the institutional memory of that Monregalese ceramics district. Its collections trace the district's production from the Napoleonic era into the 1970s, so the story does not stop at picturesque peasant ware but follows ceramics into industrial modernity.

What to notice

The building is half the experience. The palace originated in the early thirteenth century as a noble residence; its sandstone portico of pointed Gothic arches is fourteenth-century, and beneath the square lie cellars cut into the tuff of the hill. In medieval and early modern times the porticoes of the square ran unbroken around its perimeter in a single continuous circuit, of which this arcade is a surviving section. Inside, the museum occupies the representation rooms of the eighteenth-century renovation: coffered wooden ceilings, stuccoes, frescoes and original furnishings frame the display cases. The rooms include a heraldic hall with the Fauzone family arms, Renaissance-style grotesque decoration, and a baroque ceiling depicting the myth of Phaethon by an unidentified artist.

Windows in the exhibition rooms frame views of Piazza Maggiore, the Langhe hills and the Monregalese valleys. The displays include tables set with historical dinner services.

Context and history

The Fauzone were one of the most prominent families of the city and of the Savoyard Piedmont of the early 1700s; they acquired sections of the building and unified facade and interiors, producing the sober "marmorino" baroque front seen today. The palace later served public functions: it was home to the mayor Annibale Fauzone, and in 1809 it housed Pope Pius VII for two days as Napoleon had him conveyed to Savona — a plaque by the entrance commemorates the event. At the end of the nineteenth century the building held the offices of Mondovì's sub-prefecture. On the back wall of the porticoes a bust commemorates Giovanni Durando (1805–1869), the Risorgimento figure born on the square.

After restoration guided by the Piedmont Superintendency of artistic heritage, the building became the museum's home; it is now owned by the Province of Cuneo. The core collections came from the antiquarian Carlo Baggioli and the industrialist Marco Levi, an entrepreneur and banker remembered as a benefactor of the city, whose name the supporting foundation carries. The museum's displays address the history, techniques and styles of Mondovì ceramics.