It is nowhere stated that the Japanese were acquainted with any other than natural kaolinic porcelain, and it is exceedingly improbable that the members of an embassy had any knowledge of the combination of materials in an artificial paste. The Medicean was not a pure kaolinic porcelain, but “a composite paste having for basis quartz and a vitreous frit, with a small quantity of the kaolin of Vicenza.” In the second place, the embassy did not leave Japan until 1583, and only reached Italy in 1585. “In 1581,” says Jacquemart, “the experiments of the Grand Duke had produced their fruits, and he already sent presents of his translucent pottery to the other sovereigns of Europe.” The porcelain was, therefore, made before the Japanese arrived in Italy. Were anything further needed to preserve for Italy the exclusive credit of one of the greatest contributions to ceramic art, it may be found in the styles of decoration of the Medicean porcelain. These are divisible into two classes: the Oriental and the Italian. The latter resembles that of faience, and consists chiefly of grotesques. Such are the pieces upon which appear the arms of the Medicean family, for whose use they were reserved. The specimens with Oriental decoration were gifts made to spread abroad the renown of the Grand Duke’s laboratory. Such a purpose could certainly not have been fulfilled with inferior works, and this class, to which the Castellani porcelain belongs, may be taken as representing the best Medicean paste. In this view the fabric was at its highest before the Japanese left their own country, as we have seen that pieces of this character were being sent over Europe in 1581. The probability is that the Grand Duke, or Bernardo Buontalenti, who really made the discovery, arrived at it by independent investigations prompted by Oriental porcelain, and that the latter and the finer specimens of majolica suggested the decoration.