xxxv. he says that Parrhasius painted or drew upon it; but b. xii. c.
10, he ascribes the invention of it to Eumenes, king of Pergamos, who
lived after the time of Parrhasius, saying that he invented parchment
because Ptolemy, king of Egypt, had prohibited the exportation of paper
made of the papyrus. I cannot help believing that parchment was known
before the time of Eumenes. He may have improved it, and hit upon a
method of rendering it more fit for writing upon.
[232] Giotto was born in 1276; his master, Cimabue, in 1240; his
gigantic Madonnas are painted on wood. I had no opportunity of
examining whether there was linen under the plaster ground. Margaritone
was born about 1250; Gaddo Gaddi, 1239, or thereabouts.
[233] The Venetians, owing to their commerce with the East, are the
most likely of all the Italians to have been influenced by the practice
handed down by the Greek painters; and we first find the general use of
canvass, especially of very large size, at Venice.
[234] Colonel Leake’s Topography of Athens. Additional notes on the
temple of Theseus, p. 400.
[235] Taylor’s Plato--Phædo. The twelve colours are not named, but
further on there is the expression, “all the objects are rendered
beautiful through various colours--_purple_ of wonderful beauty,
_golden hue_, pure _white_, _emerald_,” &c.
[236] Carbonate of lead, with a proportion of oxide.
[237] Some of the pictures in the Campo Santo at Pisa have suffered
lamentably from the neglect of this caution. The high lights have
become absolutely black.
[238] See Pliny, book xxxiii. end of ch. 12, and the whole of ch. 13.
[239] In the manufactory of porcelain, japan-ware, &c., it is much
used. Perhaps Caligula’s chemists flattered him, by pretending to find
gold in the orpiment.
[240]
---- Twelve galleys with vermilion prores,
Beneath his conduct sought the Phrygian shores.
Pope’s Iliad, book ii.
[241] I have seen the poor gods of the Hindoos of low caste thus rouged.
[242] About the year of Rome 249.
[243] Cinabrese is praised by Armenino, who wrote in 1600. I do not
always mention Armenino when I might; 1st, because I prefer Cennino’s
authority; 2nd, because Armenino is a coxcomb whose work I have no
pleasure in; and 3rd, because it is useless to multiply quotations.
However, he is a writer of value on these matters.
[244] Minium--red oxide of lead.
[245] The ancients believed that it was really the blood of dragons,
which had sucked the blood of elephants, and had died, crushed under
the weight of that enormous quadruped.
[246] Dragon’s blood is the resin of the “Dracæna draco” of Linnæus.
The resin itself is opaque and brittle. The powder is of a crimson
colour, insoluble in water. With us it is soluble both in alcohol and
in the fixed oils; the ancients, as they had not alcohol, may have used
it with oil.
This was probably the crimson colour which the Frenchman, mentioned
in the little account of Pompeii, published by the Society for the
Diffusion of Knowledge, bought of the workmen employed in excavating
the town, and used with success as a body colour. He does not appear to
have analysed it, or in any way endeavoured to ascertain its nature,
for the benefit of art. See vol. ii., p. 56.
[247] See note to p. 8.
[248] The colour of the mantle of the Ganymede in the ancient fresco
belonging to Sir M. W. Ridley looks like discoloured lake.
[249] Sir Humphrey Davy, in his paper in the first part of the volume
of the Philosophical Transactions for 1815, on the colours used in
painting by the ancients, says, that the artificial blue found in the
baths of Titus is a frit made by means of soda, and coloured with oxide
of copper. He imagines it to have been the blue invented by an ancient
king of Egypt mentioned in the text, and the same also with that
cœrulium, the art of making which was brought from Egypt to Puteoli, by
Vestorius. That was made by heating together sand, flower of nitre, _i.
e._ soda, and filings of copper.
[250] Certain balls of a fine blue colour have been brought from the
Egyptian tombs since Sir Humphrey Davy’s paper was written. I do not
know whether they have been analysed, but their appearance is like that
of the frit found in the baths of Titus.
[251] She was of the Lusignan family, and is buried at Assisi.
[252] It is to be regretted that Baron Bertholdy did not live to
complete and publish his essay on the glass and paste of the ancients,
as applied to the production of cameos, intaglios, &c., in imitation
of true gems. He had collected a great mass of materials, and had had
some very beautiful specimens engraved. Among other fragments, I saw in
his possession, in 1819, several handles of drinking-cups, on which the
maker’s name and place of residence, namely, Sidon, were stamped before
the glass was cold, some in Greek, some in Roman letters.
Mr. Hatchet has analysed many of the ancient glasses and pastes; but he
did not find cobalt in any of them. In some very ancient beads found
in one of the oldest tombs of Egypt, he found the colouring matter
was manganese. Yet Davy speaks of a blue glass which appeared to him
to be tinged with cobalt as common among the ruins of Rome; and says,
moreover, that on analysing different ancient transparent blue glasses,
he had found cobalt in all of them.
[253] Pliny, book xxxiii. ch. 5.
[254] Borax is a salt with excess of soda. The ancients used it as we
do, as a flux, and a solder for metals.
[255] Also used by shoemakers to blacken leather shoes.
[256] Most probably Indian ink.
[257] Purple dye, the purple of Puteoli, was not procured simply from
the shell-fish, but was mixed with the juice of madder and the megalob
berries. Hence, probably, the superior quality of the pigment.
[258] Sandyx is a colour procured by calcining common ruddle and
sandarach together. Sandarach is a red substance found near, and in
silver mines. An island in the Red Sea produced a great deal. Sandarach
is also gum from the juniper, but Pliny means the mineral.--Book xxxv.
ch. 6. Virgil, however, must mean the juniper when he says, that
browsing upon sandarach rendered the fleeces of the sheep red.
[259] The early establishment of the manufacture of glass and the
beautifully coloured Venetian beads in Murano, where a remnant of
the art still exists, I think warrants my supposition. The Queen of
Cyprus’s gift of ultramarine to the church of Assisi, may be taken
as a proof, that so late as 1300 the island had not lost its colour
manufactures.
[260] This was later by four years than his examination of the colours
found in the baths of Titus, the paper upon which in the Philosophical
Transactions I have quoted.
[261] The word vernix (varnish) was entirely unknown to the ancients.
Lyttleton, in his Latin Dictionary, says it is derived from the fact,
that in the spring, _ver_, the juniper, begins to yield its resin; and
that juniper, or gum sandarach, was the first substance from which true
varnish was prepared. He ought to have added in Europe: for certainly
true varnish was used in China long before the period at which he
places the first use of the word vernix, and, as will appear by the
text, I have no doubt that the thing, if not the name, was known by our
ancients in Europe also.
[262] Supposed the Penæa sarcocolla; the gum is in the form of small
whitish grains, of a bitter sweetish taste; it is almost entirely
soluble in water.
[263] Supposed to be produced by a species of ferula. It is soluble in
water and in vinegar.
[264] The resin of the juniper.
[265] Pliny, b. xxxv. ch. 15.
[266] Pliny’s account of ampelitis appears to agree with that given by
Field, in his Book on Colours, of some specimens of native asphaltum,
brought to him direct from Persia. It did not dissolve with oil or
turpentine, but ground well with drying oil, and made a fine colour.
For ampelitis, see Pliny, b. xxxv. c. 16.
[267] A boat, or ship-builder, when he _pays_ the bottoms of his
vessels with boiling pitch, is really painting in the encaustic manner.
[268] B. xxxii. ch. 7. The word here translated _waxed cloths_, is
literally _candles_; but, as candles were made of wax, I adhere to
Holland’s expression, as giving Pliny’s meaning.
[269] B. xxi. ch. 14. The wax so coloured was the finest white punic
wax; we must not forget that waxen images were among those exhibited in
funeral processions.
[270] In his quotations from Vitruvius and Pliny he unaccountably
translates _red wax_ for _Punic wax_. Now Pliny says expressly that
Punic wax was the whitest of all, and particularly describes the manner
of bleaching it.
[271] The work of Theophilus was composed certainly not later than A.
D. 1000, probably earlier; that of Heraclius, de Artibus Romanorum, was
written about the same period. Raspe published Theophilus under the
title of “Theophilus Monacus de omni scientia artis pingendi, e codice
manuscripto Collegii Trinitatis Cantabrigiensis.”
[272] Linseed oil does not dry well without management, any more than
the nut oils. Theophilus directs that it should be simmered in a new
pipkin over a slow fire (but by no means boil), till one-third was
evaporated; then powdered fornice, _i.e._ resin from the pitch-tree,
stirred in; and observes, that every kind of painting glazed with this
becomes glossy and durable. Thus the simple oil varnish was known and
used at least as early as the eleventh century, four hundred years
before the Van Eycks.
A ground, named by Theophilus, and afterwards by Cennino, for
cementing panel, was composed of powdered lime and cheese,--the chief
ingredients, if I am not mistaken, of Vancouver’s and other strong
cements.
[273] Venice turpentine, perhaps.
[274] A term now, I believe, only used in heraldry, either in English
or French. In Rome they now make pencils of the fine hair of kids.
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Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious punctuation errors and omissions have been corrected.
The errata have been corrected.
Page 31: “a peculiar rythm” changed to “a peculiar rhythm”
Page 35: “hieroglyhic painting” changed to “hieroglyphic painting”
Page 59: “a singulur use” changed to “a singular use”
Page 87: “Poco polvere son” changed to “Poca polvere son”
Page 139: “Lists of Votive Statutes” changed to “Lists of Votive
Statues”
Page 140: “Cenino Cennini’s curious work” changed to “Cennino Cennini’s
curious work”
Page 145: “in the from of a” changed to “in the form of a” “Boticelli
first, and aftewards Raffaelle” changed to “Botticelli first, and
afterwards Raffaelle”
Page 148: “himself to to his friend” changed to “himself to his friend”
Page 172: “seen Guilio II.” changed to “seen Giulio II.”
Page 175: “by Timanthus” changed to “by Timanthes”
Page 195: “Rafaelle himself” changed to “Raffaelle himself”
Page 206: “it it enough to” changed to “it is enough to”
Page 210: “example in Pireicus” changed to “example in Pyreicus”
Page 226: “di volumi autichissimi” changed to “di volumi antichissimi”
“Autichi Popoli Italiani” changed to “Antichi Popoli Italiani”
Page 228: “noboby now thinks” changed to “nobody now thinks”
Page 252: “gum sanderach” changed to “gum sandarach”
Page 261: “he unaccountbly” changed to “he unaccountably”