For thousands of years, humans across the world have played music using some version of the ocarina, a rounded wind instrument that produces a flute-like sound. In ancient China, ocarina-like instruments date back to 5,000 BC, and the Maya and the Aztecs used them in religious ceremonies. But the modern ocarina, a sweet potato–shaped instrument with 10 to 12 holes, was invented, by mistake, in the small Italian town of Budrio. Today, that same town is host to the world’s largest ocarina festival. In 1853, Giuseppe Donati, a 17-year-old boy…
