Shopping Abruzzo: Fine Crafts and Ceramics

In Castelli, it’s a continuous succession of artisan shops and workshops. Legend has it that the Etruscans spread ceramic craftsmanship, encouraged by the clayey gullies surrounding the village at the foot of Monte Camicia. History, however, tells of a community of Benedictine monks who, faithful to the motto “ora et labora,” began, about a thousand years ago, to work the clay, passing its secrets on to the local population. Since then, the town has lived through the art of ceramics, reaching stellar heights in the 1600s and 1700s, with schools like those of Grue, Gentile, and Cappelletti, whose pieces also adorned the courts of Europe. To realize this, just take a look at the splendid ceiling of the little church of San Donato, described by Carlo Levi as the “Sistine Chapel of ceramics,” or at the pieces kept in the Ceramics Museum, just above the village, within the walls of the Convent of the Minor Observants. To see the artisans at work, simply visit Simonetti Ceramiche at the Artisan Village, where wonderful polychrome collections of Renaissance tradition stand out, or the workshop of Ivana Di Claudio, at the Villa Rossi crossroads.