The city of ceramics
Known predominately for its ancient majolica ceramics tradition, Deruta boasts an historic centre offering magnificent views of the Tiber River Valley that lies below.
The old village, arranged around the rectangular square, is characterised by a beautiful polygonal fountain (1848). Looking out onto the square are important monuments such as the deconsecrated Romanesque-Gothic church of S. Arcangelo, the Gothic church of San Francesco with the former Franciscan convent and antique cloister, the bell towers which overlook the square, and the church of Sant’Antonio. The fourteenth-century Municipal Hall, with its mullioned portal, houses the Art Gallery and the Ceramic Museum with displays of love goblets, soup bowls, gamelli plates, trays, apothecary jars and holy water fonts. The first documents that attest to these objects date back to 1290. However, its period of greatest glory was reached in the sixteenth century with original decorations, a greater variety of colours and the introduction of the lustre technique to create golden reflective effects.
A unique example of this art form can be admired in the Madonna dei Bagni Sanctuary, with more than 600 votive plaques from the 1600’s to today.