The Italians ascribe to Luca della Robbia the discovery of the tin-glaze sometime prior to 1438. We have no dated piece of Florentine or Tuscan maiolica antedating 1477, and of this year but one dated example. The next earliest dates--1507 and 1509--appear on maiolica of the Cafaggiolo _fabrique_. In the eighteenth century, as Chaffers tells us, Italian maiolica was called Raphael Ware, as it was believed, for a time, that Raphael himself had taken a hand at decorating some of it--an idea which quite naturally originated, as a great many designs from compositions by Raphael and other great masters appeared on maiolica ware. These, however, were copied from drawings and engravings. The best period of this pottery was subsequent to Raphael’s death, which took place in 1520. A Cafaggiolo plate in the Victoria and Albert Museum possibly depicts Raphael and La Fornarina watching a maiolica-decorator at work, suggesting, I think, that had Raphael himself taken a hand at maiolica-painting that fact would have led the artist of the plate to show Raphael at such occupation instead of portraying him merely as an onlooker. Again, Raffaello dal Colle, who designed maiolica for the wife of Guidobaldo I, Duke of Urbino, may have been confused by early students with Raffaello Sanzio, the great Raphael. Of the development of maiolica in Italy, Fortnum says: “In the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries native wares were produced in various places, some of which still exist in the towers and façades of churches, and in the façade of a palace at Bologna. These are lead-glazed, rudely painted or with single colors, and in some instances ‘sgraffiato,’ proving that the use of a white ‘slip’ or ‘engobe’ was known in Italy at that period, as affirmed by Passeri, who further asserts that in 1300 the art assumed a more decorative character under the lords of Pesaro, the Malatestas. An even, opaque white surface having been obtained, the development of its artistic decoration steadily advanced. The colors used were yellow, green, blue, and black, to which we may add a dull brownish red, noticed in some of the Pisan ‘bacini.’ Passeri states that the reflection of the sun’s rays from the concave surfaces of these ‘bacini’ at Pesaro was most brilliant, and hence it has been wrongly inferred that they were enriched with metallic lustre.”