Il deposito votivo di Piazza San Francesco a catania. La ceramica laconica figurata

The votive deposit of Piazza San Francesco at Catania. The figuredecorated Laconian pottery · The fragments of seven black-figured, highstemmed, Laconian cups, which have been so far identified among the materials from a votive deposit of a sanctuary of Demeter at Catania (Piazza San Francesco), date to the second and to the third quarter of the 6th century B.C. This is the period of the widest dissemination of such type of vases. They could have been dedicated as luxurious items in the sanctuary. Three others cups of the low conical foot type - two with silhouette and outlinedrawn figures and one black-figured - date slightly earlier. All of these vases and a krateriskos constitute the biggest group of figure-decorated Laconian vases in Sicily. They are attributable to the major Laconian vase-painters, whose works reached the west Mediterranean area: the Painter of the Taranto Fish (probably), the Naukratis Painter, the Arkesilas Painter, the Rider Painter and the Hunt Painter. The subjects include friezes of water birds (also on an imitation cup) and of animal-human hybrids, heroes, mythological beings, komasts, a sphynx carrying a naked young man. Such vases, already partially published, do not change much the distribution patterns of the Laconian figure-decorated pottery in the west Mediterranean area. Just a cup with conical foot, the only black-figured vase of the Naukratis Painter so far found in Sicily, stands out.