Green earth, also known as terre verte and Verona green, is an inorganic

pigment A pigment is a colored material that is completely or nearly insoluble in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compo ...

derived from the minerals

celadonite Celadonite is a mica group mineral, a phyllosilicate of potassium, iron in both oxidation states, aluminium and hydroxide with formula . It crystallizes in the monoclinic system and usually forms massive aggregates of prismatic crystallites or in ...

and glauconite. Its chemical formula is .Common Medieval Pigments
d-scholarship.pitt.edu. Retrieved August 29, 2016. First used by the ancient Romans, green earth has been identified on wall paintings at

Pompeii Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried ...

and

Dura-Europos Dura-Europos, ; la, Dūra Eurōpus, ( el, Δούρα Ευρωπός, Doúra Evropós, ) was a Hellenistic, Parthian, and Roman border city built on an escarpment above the southwestern bank of the Euphrates river. It is located near the vil ...

.Terre Verte. https://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/paper/4PigAtlasWestern1.pdf. Retrieved August 30, 2016. The Renaissance painter and writer

Cennino Cennini Cennino d'Andrea Cennini (c. 1360 – before 1427) was an Italian painter influenced by Giotto. He was a student of Agnolo Gaddi in Florence. Gaddi trained under his father, called Taddeo Gaddi, who trained with Giotto. Cennini was born in ...

claimed that “the ancients never

gilded Gilding is a decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold over solid surfaces such as metal (most common), wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, the metal below was tra ...

except with this green” being used as a bole, or undercoating. In the Middle Ages one of its best-known uses was in the underpainting of flesh tones. Green earths have been rather confusingly referred to as "verda terra" or "terra verde di Verona", which scholars have assumed incorrectly referred to Veronese green, which is actually an emerald green pigment much used in the 18th Century. SEM/EDAXS data have demonstrated that it is possible to discriminate between these two sources of celadonite in Roman wall paintings through the presence of trace elements. Spectroscopically, therefore, the analytical challenge is to differentiate between the green earths celadonite and glauconite, and perhaps chlorite, and the copper-containing malachite and verdigris, with the added ability to recognize the presence of haematite, Egyptian blue, calcite, dolomite and carbon, which have been added to change the colour tones. High quality deposits can be found in England, France, Cyprus, Germany and at Monte Baldo near Verona in Italy. The color ranges from neutral yellow green to pale greenish gray to dark matte olive green.

References

{{Reflist Inorganic pigments

See also

References