‘Arabesques’ (rabesche) confront trofei on a plate carefully drawn in the treatise on ceramics by Cipriano Piccolpasso, from 1556 to 1559 (Figure 5).1 On the left hand side, undulating lines form antique cuirasses and shields in a jumbled picture plane, while on the right, the motifs stand out more starkly, occupying contrasting areas, drawing attention to the spaces in-between; here, the body of the ceramic is given equal weight to the motifs that occupy it. By the sixteenth century, the term referring to the foliate pattern often associated with Islamic ornament was discussed and illustrated in the famous potter’s treatise by Piccolpasso. Piccolpasso provided interlacing patterns defined as rabesche or arabesques, which could easily be copied and employed in blue to give the effect of ceramics imported from the Middle East. Piccolpasso also employed the term porcelana to specify the ornamental designs often found on the rims of Ming blue and white vessels, incorporating scrolling foliage married with floral decoration such as peonies or small rosettes (see Figure 14). Piccolpasso’s treatise presents a sixteenth-century need to circulate knowledge of terms and the beginnings of a classification system for ornament, but in the absence of a clearly articulated taxonomic system, scholars are often left puzzled over terminology found in primary sources.