Palissy the Potter
The Life of Bernard Palissy, of Saintes, his Labours and Discoveries in Art and Science

This two-volume biography of the sixteenth-century French potter and natural scientist Bernard Palissy was published in 1852.

Henry Morley (Author)

9781108078061, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 April 2015

334 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.9 cm, 0.43 kg

This two-volume biography of the sixteenth-century French potter and natural scientist Bernard Palissy (c.1510–c.1590) was published in 1852, the year after the Great Exhibition, in which Palissy's extraordinary art had been brought before the Victorian public by Minton's highly decorated 'Palissy wares'. Henry Morley (1822–94) trained in medicine but later became an author and editor, writing for Charles Dickens among others. Here he gathers together all the material then available about Palissy, including the potter's own writings and a contemporary biography. Palissy was among the many European ceramicists who attempted to reproduce Chinese porcelain; his lack of success drove his family into poverty, but his highly ornamented wares, encrusted with sea creatures, came to the attention of Catherine de' Medici, who gave him her patronage and protection (he was a convinced Protestant). After her death he was sent to the Bastille, and died there.

Preface
1. Birth, parentage, and early education
2. Palissy obtains some knowledge of the world
3. More knowledge of the world
4. Palissy studies the philosophers
5. Commotions in the church
6. The French reformer
7. Palissy married and settled
8. Pottery three centuries ago
9. Palissy resolves to conquer for himself new ground
10. A truce
11. Second Palissian war for the discovery of white enamel
12. A heretic is burnt at Saintes
13. Palissy becomes a potter
14. The reformed church at Saintes
15. Affairs of France
16. Palissy publishes a book
17. Palissy in sunshine, and France under a cloud
18. The outbreak of the storm.

Subject Areas: The arts: general issues [AB]