Merrifield, Mary P.: The art of fresco painting, as practised by the old Italian and Spanish masters, with a preliminary inquiry into the nature of the colours used in fresco painting: with observations and notes (London: Charles Gilpin, 1846)

Xxii OF THE COLOURS USED
described by the various writers on art. Thus it is stated, that
Red Haematite resembles the Lapis Amatito in the following
particulars :—The colour, externally, was bluish, or iron grey,
sometimes red, or black, (Phillips, Jameson, Penny Cyclopaedia,
Cenn. Bald. Agric.).—It was hard, smooth, without veins, or gritty
parts, (Dios. Pliny, Jame. Cenn.).—Its structure was fibrous. (Enc.
Franc. Phil. Jameson, Penny Cyclopaedia, Agric. Cenn.).—When
calcined it fell into scales. (Pliny, Borg. Erac.).—It was brittle.
(Ure, Jame. Cenn.)—Gilders used it for burnishers to polish their
metals. (Jame. Cenn. Bald.)—In this last particular writers on Min-
eralogy differ from the writers on Art; Phillips and Ure say the
powder is used to burnish metals ; Jameson does not particularize,
but merely observes, of the Red Haematite, that “ it is used for
polishing tin silver and gold vessels, and for colouring iron brown,”
while the writers on art assert, that the solid stone, when shaped
into a tool and polished, was used to burnish metals. It was
fibrous like cinnabar, which it resembled in colour, and by which
name it was also known.—(Cenn. Agric. Bald. Borg.)
With respect to the Albin of Palomino, the description
is more indefinite than that of Amatito. In the index of
the Terms of Art, added by another writer to the first volume of
Palomino’s Museo Pictorico, (third edition, 1795,) the following
explanation is given of Albin; “a dark crimson colour which is
brought in stones (Piedras) from the mines of copper; it serves in-
stead of carmine for painting in fresco.” In Gattel’s Spanish and
French Dictionary, Albin is thus explained, '* Sanguine; pierre de
couleur rouge. Lat. Lapis Sanguinarius. Couleur rouge faite avec la
sanguine. Lat. Color ex lapide sanguinario.” In Pineda’s Spanish
Dictionary, Albin is translated Bloodstone.
It may be proper to mention, that there is a mineral called Albin,
mentioned in Phillips’ Mineralogy, p. iii, of an opaque white colour,
from which indeed it derives its name. It has none of the properties
of the Albin of Palomino.

Secondly, that Lapis Amatita—Red Hematite—was used to
burnish gold.—I shall now endeavour to prove that the Lapis Ama-
tita, the Red Haematite, was and still is used to burnish metals. It