The ocarina is a type of vessel flute, meaning its body is an enclosed space rather than an open-ended tube. While vessel flutes have existed for over 12,000 years in Chinese and Mesoamerican cultures, the modern 'Italian' ocarina was developed in 1853 by Giuseppe Donati. Donati transformed the ancient toy into a musical instrument capable of playing a full chromatic scale. The name 'ocarina' means 'little goose' in the Bolognese dialect, referring to its distinctive shape. Unlike a recorder or flute, where the pitch is determined by the length of the column of air, the pitch of an ocarina is determined by the ratio of the total area of the open holes to the total volume of the instrument. This means the placement of the holes is less important than their size. The ocarina gained massive pop-culture fame in the late 1990s through the video game 'The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.'