MUMA - Museum of Maiolica of Laterza

The Maiolica Museum of Laterza – MUMA – inaugurated in 2015, houses a significant collection of ancient and extremely valuable Laertina factory maiolica, painstakingly collected over two decades by an enlightened Bari connoisseur, entrepreneur Riccardo Tondolo.\n\nA peculiarity of Laterza maiolica is the monochromatic blue on a white background and a decorative apparatus animated by mythological characters, ladies and knights, battles and hunting scenes, fairytale landscapes populated by sometimes strange and grotesque animals, all framed by dense embroideries of daisies, tendrils and vegetable garlands.\n\nThe Museum is housed in the Marchesale Palace, once a medieval castle, transformed in the 16th century into a palace by Giovanni Battista I d’Azzia and his wife Giulia di Capua, as documented by the family crest on the entrance portal.\n\nThe exhibition, organized into sections, displays the collection of Dr. Riccardo Tondolo, a Bari entrepreneur and passionate connoisseur and collector of Italian ceramics, as well as pieces from the Mater Domini Sanctuary, the Bassano Museum and the collection of Dr. Calabrese.