caltagirone: pottery city

the pottery city

Caltagirone is one of the biggest towns in the province of Catania, both for inhabitants and for extension of its territory. The town, that belongs to the Val di Noto world heritage due to its late baroque style, is especially famous for the production of ceramic.

Due to its favorable position between the plane of Catania (in the east) and the plane of Gela (in the south), Caltagirone has been inhabited since the prehistoric time, as the many archeological remains in the area can proof. After the Greeks and the Romans, the Arabs have strongly contributed to the success of the city. While the ceramic had always been produced, the Arabs introduced new techniques in the production, especially the lucid coating. The reasons why ceramic grew so much in this town seems to be due to the honey production in the forests around the city (and hence the need for containers for it) and abundance of wood to feed the fire in the furnaces. A very famous ceramic product is the so called Testa di Moro (Head of Turk).

Like the other cities in the East of Sicily, Caltagirone was completely destroyed during the 1693 earthquake, but was rebuilt in the same place, between the three hills where the original medieval town was. The new town was rebuilt in the classic late baroque style, and due to the high amount of nobles and wealthy people, the best architects of the time have been called to build churches, monasteries and palaces.

The city has remained an important town until the beginning of the XX century, when a slow decline started. Today it is still famous worldwide for the production of ceramics. Another famous artisan product of the town is the holy nativity (presepe).

One of the landmark of the city is the Scalinata di Santa Maria del Monte, a stairway made of 140 stairs each decorated with the traditional ceramic of the town. The stair was built in 1606 to connect the old town to the new town up in the hill, and remade in the mid 1900s to what we can see today. On the stair, for the festival of San Giacomo on 24th and 25th of July each year, about 4000 candles are lit to create an image with a very spectacular effect.