18 - The disappeared laboratory

Before he built his laboratory and expanded it as we still see it, Ferruccio Mengaroni had a difficult start. At twelve years old he had been expelled from all the schools in the Kingdom for exuberance and inability to follow the rules. His father tried to send him to Molaroni's workshop just to keep him busy, but instead an unstoppable passion for ceramics blossomed. He remained there for twelve years, learning ancient styles and practicing their reproduction. But his nature emerged and so the desire to change the expressive possibilities of ceramics pushed him to open a laboratory in Viale Zara (then Via Castelfidardo), building four furnaces. In 1919 some people from Pesaro joined the company to support its development, and in fact it ended up having fifty workers.

Following the consolidation of the business, Mengaroni decided to transform the space following a taste that he felt close to, that of D'Annunzio. The space becomes a crenellated castle and the climate of beauty was lavished in every corner and at every moment, even that of production: it is said that during work he made the employees read passages from Glauco by his friend Morselli. Imagination, skill, beauty integrate and light up in this place today known as the castiglione.

The factory closed in 1920 to reopen as "Maiolica Artistica Pesarese" (M.A.P.) and the production, from 1920 onwards, is marked by the letters M.A.P. with the addition of the graphic symbol of the rampant lion holding a quince branch, ancient symbol of the lordship of the Sforza family, and the word Pesaro.

On May 13, 1925, Ferruccio Mengaroni died in a tragic accident, during the installation of his works presented at the Biennale di Arti Decorative in Monza, killed under the weight of an enormous polychrome majolica tondo, created by him, and depicting the head of Medusa, which we mentioned in the civic museums stage. But the factory, led by Aristodemo Mancini, continued its production under the name "A.M. Mengaroni & C.". In 1945, the factory was taken over by a group of employees who managed it until 1949 under the direction of Antonio Imperatori, until 1958, the year of its definitive closure.