[71] Hardouin quotes Aristot. Hist. Animal. vi. c. 9. But that naturalist speaks of a sea-weed which was cast on shore by the Hellespont. A dye or paint was made of it, and the people in the neighbourhood imagined that the purple of this sea-weed, which served as food to certain shell-fish, communicated to them their beautiful dye. A proof that sea-weeds (_fuci_) can communicate a red colour may be found in the Transactions of the Swedish Academy, iv. p. 29. [72] Voyage du Levant. Amsterd. 1718, 4to, i. p. 89. [73] “Præterea Amorgina, optima quidem in Amorgo fiunt, sed et hæc e lino esse asserunt. Tunica autem Amorgina etiam amorgis nuncupatur.”--Onomasticon, vii. c. 16. [74] Histor. Nat. lib. xxvii. c. 11. [75] Pinax Plant. p. 365. Hist. Plant. iii. 2. p. 796. [76] Other accounts say that he was an Englishman; but the name Frederigo confirms his German extraction. [77] Giornale de’ Letterati d’ Italia, t. xxxiii. parte i. p. 231. [78] These documents from the Florentine records may be found in Dominici Mariæ Manni de Florentinis Inventis Commentarium. Ferrariæ, 1731, p. 37, from which I have extracted the following:--“One of this family resided formerly a long time in the Levant, where he carried on trade, according to the custom of the Florentine nation. Being one day in the fields, and happening to make water on a plant, of which there was great abundance, he observed that it immediately became extraordinarily red. Like a prudent man, therefore, he resolved to make use of this secret of nature, which till that time had lain hid; and having made several experiments on that herb, and finding it proper to dye cloth, he sent some of it to Florence, where, being mixed with human urine and other things, it has always been employed to dye cloth purple. This plant, which is called _respo_, is in Spain named _orciglia_, and by botanists commonly _corallina_. The mixture made with it is called _oricello_, and has been of great utility and advantage to the woollen manufacture, which is carried on to greater extent in Florence than in any other city. From this circumstance the individuals of that family, by being the inventors of oricello, have been called Oricellai, and have been beloved by the people for having procured to them this particular benefit. Thus has written John di Paolo Rucellai (_Manni says that this learned and opulent man wrote in the year 1451_); and the same account is still given by dyers in our city, who relate and affirm that their ancestors have for a century exercised the art of dyeing, and that they know the above from tradition.” This is confirmed by another passage:--“One of this family, on account of the trade carried on faithfully and honestly by the Florentines, travelled to the Levant, and brought thence to Florence the art, or rather secret, of dyeing in oricello.”