The endeavours made throughout Europe to discover a method of making porcelain, similar in its qualities or approaching to that imported from China, had begun in the sixteenth century. In this direction also royal encouragement was of the greatest value, and we find that first in the field of discovery was, as naturally might be expected, that country in which the enamelled earthenware had previously reached its highest perfection. Under the patronage of the Grand Duke Francis I. about 1580, experiments were made which at length resulted in the production of an artificial porcelain of close body and even glaze. The existence of such a production and the history of its origin have been revealed to us only within the last few years, and we are indebted to Dr. Foresi of Florence for having made this discovery, so interesting in the history of the ceramic arts. He had noticed and collected some pieces of a porcelain of heavy nature and indifferent whiteness, decorated in blue with flower and leafage pattern of somewhat oriental style but at the same time unmistakably European, on some of which a mark occurs consisting of the capital letter F, surmounted by a dome. The earliest recorded European porcelain had heretofore been that produced by Dr. Dwight, at Fulham, in 1671, and at St. Cloud in France, about 1695, but the specimens found by Dr. Foresi were manifestly not attributable to either of these or any other known sources. Further researches brought to light a piece of the same ware on which the pellets of the Medici coat were substituted for the more useful mark, and led to a search among the records of that house. Dr. Foresi was rewarded for his trouble by the discovery that the above-named duke had actually caused experiments to be made, and had established a private fabrique in connection with his laboratory in the Boboli gardens. The Magliabecchian library yielded an important manuscript compilation by some person employed by the duke, giving the nature of the composition and details of the production of this ware. The marks on the pieces explained the rest. The Medici arms and the initials F. M. M. E. D. I. I., reading “Franciscus Medici Magnus Etruriæ Dux Secundus,” on one important piece now in the collection of the baron Gustave de Rothschild of Paris, clearly attached it to his reign, while the letter F, the initial of the city, and the dome of her cathedral of which she was so proud, equally pointed to the place of its production.