The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the vicissitudes of Albisolese ceramics inspired
by the past, which, during the twentieth century, though undervalued compared to the
privileged circuit of art although his production has been conspicuous and uninterrupted
in the area’s factories. Buoyed by the examples of the historicist revival of eclectic taste
and the vehicle of knowledge and dissemination constituted by the proliferation of major
exhibitions, local entrepreneurs, beginning in the late 20th century, intended to revive the
Baroque splendor and Rococo graces of Ligurian majolica of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, creating a composite style, defined as “ancient Savona.” Among the most
talented creators of this decoration were Dario Ravano and Romeo Bevilacqua. Their repertoires
and not the antique prototypes came to be the models to be followed by the painters
who worked in the manufactories, which sprang up in large numbers in the Albisole
after World War I, thanks to the contingency favorable to crafts and applied arts and, after
World War II, thanks to the economic boom and the considerable flow of tourism that had
poured into the Ligurian Riviera.