Vasari, whose carelessness is so notorious that nobody now thinks of depending on anything he says, beyond what it is certain he could have seen, attributes to Margaritone, about A.D. 1270, the first use of fine linen cloth, which he says he pasted over his panels to prevent cracks and rents. But there are many examples of Italian pictures before Margaritone, where the panel is covered with linen, whether for the purpose above mentioned, or for the sake of securing a more equal ground, is of no importance. It is enough if we find the practice established among those most likely to have inherited at least the mechanical part of ancient painting. Cennino gives particular directions for laying down cloth upon panel, and he professes to teach the practice of Giotto. But Giotto’s first works go back to the thirteenth century[232], and he adopted the practice of his master, Cimabue, and learned whatever his friend Gaddo Gaddi could teach him of the methods of the Greek painters, in company with whom Gaddo had been employed in decorating Saint Mark’s, in Venice, and Santa Maria Maggiore, in Rome; and we may hence conclude that Margaritone only did what older painters had done before. Indeed from his personal character it is unlikely that he should have set the example of a new practice, for he is said to have been weary of life on account of the new fashions in art that were obtaining towards the end of his career, and to have envied the younger painters for their success[233]. As the ancient painting on marble appears to have been merely for the sake of capricious additions to the beautiful variegated veins of nature, it is not worth naming. With regard to the pigments used by the ancients, the greater number are employed still. All the ochres, the vermilion, white lead, lamp-black, and so on, appear to have been prepared and applied either in fresco or distemper, as they are now. With regard to the colours for pictures on panel also, there appears to be only the difference that modern improvements in chemistry have introduced. It may not be without interest to compare Pliny’s account of colouring substances in the first century with that of Cennino in the fourteenth, and these with the list of pigments now employed. It will be more difficult to collect information as to the vehicles used in painting; but I do not despair of suggesting to the consideration of the antiquarian artist a few points which may lead to farther knowledge. But, before I proceed, I must notice the common belief, founded, it is true, upon an expression of Pliny’s, that the ancient painters, even Apelles himself, used but four colours, and that these were white and black; and red and yellow ochres.