Fanciullacci Ceramiche Biography
The ceramic factory "Ceramiche Artistiche F.lli Fanciullacci" was founded in Montelupo Fiorentino by Raffaello Fanciullacci (1803-1881), in 1862 with the name of "Fornace Bardi Capraia". He was succeeded by Demetrio (1841-1895), with the collaboration of his sons Ilario, Giovanni, Amedeo and Alfredo, who managed the factory until 1895, the year in which, due to his death, the company passed into the hands of his sons, who briefly relaunch the ancient ceramic tradition of the Valdarno city. Specializing in tableware but also involved in the creation of artistic ceramics, in 1914 the company's catalog featured almost 1,000 different models. In the 1920s the factory, which employed around seventy people who created production inspired by antiquity, opened up to modernist demands thanks to some artists such as Vincenzo Ossani, Lorenzo and Giovacchino Canneri, Dino and Mario Scappini, Bruno Bagnoli and Benvenuto Staderini. Among the master ceramists active at the factory we remember, among others, the Montelupino Aldo Londi, who worked in the Fanciullacci factory at a very young age until 1935, the potter Bruno Cini, who worked at the factory for thirty-five years and the chief modeller Giovanni Dolfi, trained as a very young apprentice at the factory and collaborator of this factory until 1952. In the years after the Second World War the factory, which is based in viale Umberto in Montelupo Fiorentino, in the province of Florence, once again renewed its artistic production by creating works of primitivist inspiration and in 1946 took over the laboratories of the "Mannozzi" company of Montopoli in Val D'Arno. During the flood that hit Florence in 1966 the factory suffered serious damage and, after a forced stop, it was no longer able to regain its spaces market. Production finally ceased in 1988. Some of the manufacturing works are today preserved in the Ceramics Museum of Faenza.
