Valerio Terraroli is professor of history of contemporary art and history of modern decorative arts at the University of Turin. He is the author of numerous essays and volumes on art and the decorative arts, including the Skira Dictionary of Modern and Decorative Arts (2001).

Beautifully illustrated and well documented with detailed technical entries, this volume surveys the production of Italian ceramic art through 500 objects. The essays examine the stylistic trends from the brilliant floral decorativism of the Tuscan ceramics by Galileo Chini, the extraordinary period of the 1920s and 1930s, as represented by Gio Ponti, Guido Andloviz, Giovanni Gariboldi, Pietro Meandri and Francesco Nonni, and the contamination by contemporary painting and sculpture, from the Futurists up to the first Informal pieces at the end of the second World War through the early works of Fontana, Leoncillo and Melotti. The book is filled with valuable information including biographical profiles of the artists, detailed descriptions of the manufacturers, a cataloguing of their back stamps, an up-to-date bibliography, and a technical glossary.Comprehensive and engrossing, the book is essential reading for collectors, antique experts, art scholars, students and anyone interested in ceramics.