Porcelain styles, and there are several modern industrial manufacturers. These exported Chinese porcelains were held in such great esteem in Europe that in English "china" became a commonly–used synonym for the Italian term "porcelain". The first mention of porcelain in Europe is in "Il Milione" by Marco Polo in XII sec. Apart from copying Chinese porcelain in "faience" (tin glazed earthenware), the soft-paste Medici porcelain in 16th-century Florence was the first real European attempt to reproduce it, with little success. Early in the 16th century, Portuguese traders returned home with samples of kaolin, which they discovered in China to be essential
Saint-Cloud porcelain Saint-Cloud porcelain Saint-Cloud porcelain was a type of soft-paste porcelain produced in the French town of Saint-Cloud from the late 17th to the mid 18th century. In 1702, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans gave letters-patent to the family of Pierre Chicaneau, who were said to have been making porcelain as "perfect as the Chinese" since 1693. Chicaneau's factory was a pioneer in the manufacture of porcelain in Europe, where there had been many attempts to copy Chinese porcelain. Saint-Cloud developed a frit ("a mixture of a flux, sand and chalk") which was close, although not similar, to Asian porcelain. The