12 - Casa Baratti

The small Collenuccio square is a hymn to ceramics. There are small religious-themed objects around the Cathedral, but above all there is Baratti's house. By the artist, who died in Pesaro in 2008, there are works in the Civic Museums of Pesaro, in the Museum of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Pesaro, in the Ceramics Museum of Faenza, in the Museum of Vicenza and in various public bodies including the Chamber of Commerce of Pesaro and Urbino, the Banca delle Marche, religious institutes as well as in numerous private collections in Italy and abroad.

He had begun working first with the artist Wildi in the Ciccoli Manufactory, then with a strong imprint of Mengaroni.

In 1939, tired of continually repeating Renaissance-style decorations and eager to give free rein to his creative flair, thanks to the patron Giorgio Ugolini who offered him a piece of land in exchange for some ceramics, he opened the Baratti laboratory, in via Condotti in Pesaro, from which modern-flavored ceramics emerged, including some interesting unique pieces.

In 1942, 1946 and 1947 some of his works won first prize in the Faenza ceramist competition.

During the war years he worked at the Military District of Pesaro and this allowed him to continue working in his laboratory until the post-war years when he decided to teach some students who would later become, in the 1950s, skilled ceramists.

In the first half of the 1950s, Baratti moved his laboratory to the very central Piazzale Collenuccio, in Pesaro, in a 17th-century house that had been partially destroyed by mines placed by the retreating Germans at the end of the Second World War.

On the ground floor there was the exhibition (held in the stables) and the laboratory, attended by young students of great talent such as Nanni Valentini, Renato Bertini, Auro Salvaneschi and Ferruccio Marchetti, as well as by established artists such as Valentino Angelini and the "potter" Marco Terenzi or less established, making that place a cultural meeting point of the city.

It is said that every day, in the early afternoon, the two ceramists Bruno Baratti and Alessandro Gallucci met and talked about art during the daily walk along the seafront.