Seventy to eighty per cent sheep's milk, the rest cow's: rennet and lactic ferments at around thirty-five degrees, the curd broken after twenty to thirty minutes, the shape hand-pressed, then aged twenty to thirty days at ten to twelve degrees. The result is a soft cheese with a delicate flavour that melts easily.
The first official record dates to 1545, in Solone di Campello's commentary on the statutes of the Duchy of Urbino. It is said to have been the favourite cheese of Michelangelo Buonarroti and of Pope Clement XIV. The Dukes of Montefeltro, and later the Della Rovere family, supported production by encouraging the use of local sheep's milk and cutting transit taxes on the cheese.
The national Denominazione di Origine arrived in 1982, and the European Protected Designation of Origin in 1996: the production zone coincides with the province of Pesaro e Urbino.