3,^4 Mk^KV ^ (V 4f,{ of Dyeing, 



Though, in ^onseuueuce of the crusades in the l;]th.and 

 fQ^lowiug centuries, this art began to be revived in the west, 

 ^s the Christian princes who went on these expeditions 

 brought back with them a great, many Greek artists, dyeing 

 bad been so htUe iraprpy^ed, that, according to the testimony 

 of an old English poet, Gualfred de Winesauf, who wrote a 

 ^ttre about the year 1202, the Romans at that period ob- 

 tained their scarlet from Greece^. Soon after, however, the 

 Italians, and particularly the Venetians, made considerable 

 progress in this art : for as the crusaders were conveyed to 

 the Holy Land and brought back from it chiefly in Italian 

 ships, the Italians had the best opportunities either of learn- 

 ing the art of dyeing beautiful colours themselves, or of carry- 

 ing back expert dyers, whom they must have found very ne- 

 cessary to their manufactures, which were then beginning to 

 increase f. About this period, therefore, we find here and 

 there traces of new dye-materials, or, at least, materials not 

 before mentioned. Thus, a charter of the year 1194, which 

 is a contract between the inhabitants of Bologna and those 

 of Ferrara respecting certain duties, speaks of Brasil grains 

 fgrana de BrasileJ and of indigo, as articles which xyere 

 obliged to pay duty at Bologna J. 



In regard to the indigo here mentioned, I can hardly be- 

 lieve that we are to understand by it our dye-stuif of the same 

 name ; as a more modern writer, Plictho, whom I shall men- 

 tion hereafter, was unacquainted with our indigo. It is much 

 more probable that what is here meant is the substance 

 which occurs in Pliny under the name of indiciim^ and 

 >yhich was merely a paint §. In the like manner, a paint 

 was known in Germany called cndich before real indigo was 

 known ; which, as we arc told by Crolach in his description 



♦ Muratori ut supra. 



+ So early as the year 1338 there were in Florence 200 cloth manu- 

 factories, which manufactured annually from /O to 80,000 pieces of 

 cloth, valued at 1 ,200,000 florins.— See Delia Decima, torn. ii. p. 3. 

 sez. 4. c. 9. 



X Muratori Dissert, de Mercatihus et Jvlercatura Soeculorum Rudium, 

 torn. ii. Antiquitat. diss .30. p. 8<)8. 



§ Plin. lib. XXXV. cap. 6. He describes this colour as a scum which 

 adhered to certain reeds. 



of 



