Tin-glazed pottery was produced in the ancient Middle East by the Babylonians, and the technique—applying a tin glaze painted with metallic oxides to ceramic—has been in use continuously since that time. Hispano-Moresque potters employed it extensively in the fourteenth century, and it became popular, then famous, in Italy. Known there as maiolica, the technique developed into a sophisticated art form during the fifteenth century. Maiolica centers were established in Florence, Faenza, and in Urbino, where by 1525 the most notable Italian maiolica was produced. Urbino artists improved the glaze palette in range and brightness and also began to use the entire surface of the plate as a pictorial ground, much as if it were a canvas. Vessel forms and styles of depiction gained in scale and complexity; pieces of this sort were commissioned by patrons as gifts or for personal display on a sideboard or buffet. This plate is painted in the istoriato (narrative) style, also developed in Urbino. It shows a scene from Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, an epic glorifying the Estes, an Italian noble family. Here the hero, Ruggiero, appears on a winged beast between architectural columns, a classically composed group of figures beneath him and a walled city and landscape in the background.