We’re in Rome, mainly for dentistry, but there is no shortage of less painful things to do in the Eternal City. It’s always exciting to be here so I got up early on Saturday. It was a bit too early, as it turned out because nothing was open yet, not even the Botanic Gardens, though the empty streets were appealing, as was the quality of light.
I also decided to check out ‘Caput Mundi Shopping Mall’ near St. Peter’s Square, which promised to be an intriguing juxtaposition of heavenly and worldly interests. Much to my disappointment, it was closed, this time for renovations. However, you could walk through it to get to the road leading to Piazza Papa Pio XII right in front of St. Peter’s Church. Taking the escalator, I noticed some posters dedicated to various pigments used by ancient Roman artists. I realized I’d never thought much about different kinds of ancient Roman paint. I’m willing to bet you haven’t either and are feeling pretty silly about it right now. Don’t worry, I’m here to assist!
Caeruleum Aegyptium (Egyptian blue) is a dark-blue pigment derived from the oxidization of malachite, a copper-based mineral (chemists call it calcium copper silicate). The blue used in the frescos at Pompeii was generally made with copper ore exported from Cyprus, which was then heated with lime and an alkali.
Atramentum was the name used by the Romans to describe any very black substance, usually liquid. Atramentum librarium was ink used to write on parchment and papyrus; atramentum sutorium was used to dye shoes; atramentum tectorium was used by painters. It was produced in various ways. One menthod was to boil cuttlefish bones and “other organic substances”, another was to burn ivory and yet another to manufacture it by creating a reaction of iron salt with tannic acid. Other materials used included soot, coal and lampblack. There’s an interesting post on Roman writing implements over at The History Girls blog.
Coccus Illici (Kermes): A rich red dye tending to violet that was widely used in antiquity for dying cloth, this pigment came from the dried bodies of female Kermes insects, especially Kermes vermiliio. For centuries it was known as the ‘King’s Red’ until it was eventually replaced by carmine, a dye extracted from the cochineal insect (Dactylopius coccus) of Central America. Carmine is still used to color lipsticks, drinks, meat and other stuff.
Sinopis (Sinopia): This was a dark reddish-brown natural earth pigment, whose reddish color comes from hematite, a dehydrated form of iron oxide. It was mined in Cappadocia and exported through Europe via the port of Sinop, a city on the southern coast of the Black Sea (now an area of Turkey).
Viride Appianum (Appian green) was a green pigment made of ‘green earth’ – derived from the minerals celadonite and glauconite. Pliny the Elder is fairly disparaging about it:
There are besides two new, very cheap pigments; the kind called Appian is green and imitates chrysocolla – as if there weren’t too many counterfeits of it already – it is made from green earth and goes for a sesterce a pound. Plin. Nat. 35.22
Chrysocolla was a minor ore of copper that was brighter and lighter than green earth.
Here’s a depiction of Flora with a beautiiful green background, from Villa Ariadne in Stabiae, near Pompeii.
And a garden scene from the Villa of Livia, the sumptuous country residence of Octavian’s wife Livia Drusilla.
Cerussa (white lead) was one of the most important pigments in art history and seems to have developed independently in China and the Mediteranean in the first millennium BC. It was used in ointments, plasters, cosmetics and to prevent shipworm.
Here’s Theophrastus on how the chemical compound was created in Ancient Greece (and most probably in Rome too):
Lead is placed in earthen vessels over sharp vinegar, and after it has acquired some thickness of a sort of rust, which it commonly does in about ten days, they open the vessels and scrape it off, as it were, in a sort of foulness; they then place the lead over vinegar again, repeating over and over again the same method of scraping it till it has wholly dissolved. What has been scraped off they then beat to powder and boil for a long time, and what at last subsides to the bottom of the vessel is ceruse. Theophrastus’ (371-287) The History of Stones
Auripigmentum (Orpiment aka arsenic trisulphide) was a lemon-yellow or golden pigment originally from Spain and extracted from the mines of Las Medulas. Nero supposedly used it to create the effect of a starry sky in his salon. Interestingly, the Greeks called it arsenikon (male) and the Chinese (Pinying) Ci-Huang (‘female yellow’). Like a lot of the other paints it is pretty toxic. It has been used as fly poison and to tip arrows to make them that much deadlier.
Cinabrum (Cinnabar or Vermilion) was (and is) a bright and intense red obtained by processing mercury. In some cultures, it was considered precious and magical, its powder form supposedly effected eternal life. In Late Neolithic and Copper Age Iberia, it seems people went wild for the stuff, bunging it into sacred rituals willy nilly, heedless of the health consequences. Romans were used liberally to paint statues, frescoes and mosaics, with similar disregard for atmospheric mercury poisoning.
Romans considered the pigment to represent blood, courage and the god of war (the red planet was named Mars for this reason). Roman soldiers wore red tunics and gladiators wore red cloaks. Not surprisingly, the color featured largely in triumphal processions.
During their heyday the Romans got cinnabar from Almadén, Spain, the largest mercury mine in the world (Almadén and Idrija is a joint UNESCO World Heritage Site because of this).
As a pigment used in frescos, cinnabar made a striking background as, for example, in this fresco from Pompeii and now in the Met museum in New York, the Wall painting from Room H of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale (ca. 50–40 B.C.). There was some talk about how a lot of Pompeii’s red rooms were originally yellow, but the volcanic gases released during the eruption changed them to red. I’m pretty sure this one was originally red though.
So, by the bottom of the escalator, I’d learned about a few of the paints used back in Caesar’s time.
A taxi driver we were talking to the other day said he has lived here for 35 years and every week he is learning something new about his native city. After my three-minute escalator ride in an out-of-service mall, I can believe it. Frankly, it is exhausting to think of how much stuff can be squeezed out of every square centimeter of this city.
