Giuseppe Donati

Giuseppe Donati (2 December 1836 – 14 February 1925) was the inventor of the classical ocarina, a ceramic wind instrument based on the principle of a Helmholtz resonator.

Giuseppe Donati

Donati was born in Budrio. Legend has it that he created his first "little goose" ("ocarina" in Italian dialect) in 1853, aged 17, whilst still working as a brickmaker. His first ocarina-making workshop was in his hometown of Budrio. When he moved to larger premises in Bologna in 1878, a fellow musician of the Gruppo Ocarinistico, Cesare Vicinelli, continued the Budrio workshop. Donati died, aged 88, in Milan.