But there would have been nothing marvellous, nothing out of the reach of other men, in admitting that the greatest painters of antiquity were provided with a good palette of colours. It was more agreeable to make them execute extraordinary works with inadequate means, and so keep them as a race apart, and far excelling what these degenerate days can produce. It would not have been worth while to notice Pliny’s splenetic sentence on the four colours, had it not been rendered important by the use, or rather abuse, of it in modern times, and I could not let it pass unnoticed and uncontradicted, when so many proofs of its want of foundation were to be found in his own book, and in numberless facts connected with the most ancient works of art in existence. I will now proceed to give such an account as I have been able to glean from writers in different ages, of the pigments either formerly or now in use. Of the white colouring matters, that most used by modern painters could not have been of great value to the ancients, unless they had some oils, or vehicles equivalent, wherewith to apply it; for it turns black when used in water or fresco painting. I mean ceruse, or white lead[236]. Pliny speaks of that from Spain as the best for painters; and he also names calcined ceruse, the use of which was discovered by the accident of a ship taking fire in the port of Piræus, when the ceruse in pots which was on board was consequently calcined. It is remarkable that these pots of ceruse had been brought from Spain for the use of the Greek ladies, who painted their faces with it. Cennino praises the same white highly; but warns fresco painters against it[237]; and our modern artists use it to temper most of their colours in oil. Next to the ceruse, the ancients valued as white a natural earth from Egypt, Crete, and Cyrene, which Pliny tells us is said to be hardened sea foam mixed with mud, and that accordingly minute shells were found in it. This should be the _meerschaum_, so valued for the bolls of tobacco-pipes in Germany, but the meerschaum has no shells. He calls it Parætonum, and says it made the best and finest wash for walls and fine stucco. There was also a very fine white pigment, made of chalk, ground with the white glass of which rings and other ornaments were made; it was therefore called annulare. Next to this, as a natural earth, that called Eretria, both raw and calcined, was valued; and then Melinum, from the isle of _Melos_; which last was, however, often too unctuous for painters’ use, in which case it suited the fullers better. Giotto’s white was called Bianco di San Giovanni, and seems to have been composed of the finest lime, repeatedly washed and beaten to purify it, and then made into small cakes, and dried in the sun. The natural white earths were also used, especially in fresco painting.