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Tazza

Ceramics
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Tazza: A shallow, saucer-like cup on a stem or foot, often made of silver, glass, or ceramics, used for serving, displaying, or as a decorative object, evoking elegance and fine craftsmanship.

Detailed Definition
In the category of ceramics, tazze elevate offerings as shallow, wide dishes or cups mounted on a pedestal foot, often made in maiolica, porcelain, or stoneware during the Renaissance and later periods, used for serving fruit, sweets, or as decorative centerpieces with painted mythological or pastoral scenes. In poetry, they suggest ritual and height by symbolizing elevation of the mundane to the sacred, the offering of beauty or sustenance to guests or gods, and the vertical grace that lifts the eye and spirit; poets draw on the tazza's form to explore themes of hospitality, artistic aspiration, classical allusion, and the staging of abundance, where the raised vessel mirrors the poet's act of presenting insights from a higher perspective, blending historical artistry with metaphors for transcendence, generosity, and the ceremonial framing of life's gifts. (Approximately 550 characters)
Example
Example in poetry:
The tazza — a shallow, wide-bowled cup on a stem, used for wine or for holding fruit and sweetmeats — appears in poems about Renaissance and Baroque display as an emblem of the beautiful useful object elevated by form; A poem about a Venetian banquet might describe the tazza circulating: "the wide bowl passed around the table as a shallow argument for generosity — the stem giving the hand a graceful hold, the bowl giving the wine a generous surface"; In poems about Italian silver and goldsmith work, the tazza appears as one of the forms that most perfectly balances function and aesthetic statement; The tazza's shallow bowl — spreading the liquid wide, allowing the surface to breathe — gives poets an image of exposure and openness: "the wine held not so much contained as offered"; A Keatsian poem of sensuousness might describe a tazza of majolica: "the shallow bowl brimming with the late season's figs — the stem cold, the bowl warm with what it held"; In a poem about a museum's Renaissance metalwork collection, the tazza concentrates the period's belief that every object of use should also be a work of art: "the stem of a man, the bowl the world — and the wine in the world's bowl the reason for both."
Additional Notes
The tazza (Italian for cup) is a wide, shallow dish or bowl raised on a single pedestal foot, used from the Renaissance onward as a display vessel for fruit, confections, or small objects, or as a ceremonial drinking cup. Tazze were made in silver, glass, maiolica, and porcelain. In the context of a dessert service, the tazza was an ornamental as much as a functional piece, placed on the table to display its form and to hold fruit or sweetmeats. The word carries classical resonance — derived from an Arabic root through Italian — and appears in poetry as a marker of Renaissance or Italianate luxury and the culture of the well-appointed table.
Also Known As
ornamental cup pedestal dish shallow bowl
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