14 On ILncauJiic Painting. 



lefs abfolutely to add gum and honey, as he affirms that it 

 would render the wax far more yielding, and much fofber for 

 the brufh. 



I contented myfclf with confidcring, in my clofct, the re- 

 mit of the laudable difpute of thefe able and meritorious 

 writers, and thought I could clearly perceive that none of 

 them had come near enough to the mark, though each °f 

 them had done eflential fervicc to the art. 



Some of the ancient writers who have thrown light on 

 this fubje£t, among whom are Varro, Vitruvius, and Pliny, 

 exprefsly afcribe to the ancient painters the ufe of Punic, 

 that is Carthaginian, wax. It was faid to be the beft, as it 

 exceeded in whitenefs the Sardinian and Corfican ; and the 

 reafon of this probably lay in its being better purified ; for 

 the Africans, as Pliny tells us, were accuftomed to ufe alkali 

 in order to render this fubftance whiter, and, in my orinion, 

 to free it from all greafy matter. It was then called Punic 

 wax, as Venetian turpentine, foap, and wax, arc now pre- 

 ferred in books of receipts in order to fignify the beft ; and 

 we mull conclude, if, inftead of confidering the wax to 

 have been merely bleached, we convert it into real foap, 

 arifing from the clofe combination of the wax with the alkali, 

 that we change and pervert the meaning of thefc authors. 

 The idea which I formed of the period of encauftic painting, 

 and the country where invented, was confiderably different, 

 and I have had the pleafure of finding it afterwards con, 

 firmed by experiments and fa&s. 



The knowledge and ufe of encauflic painting is certainly 

 older than the time of the Greeks and the Romans, to whom 

 the learned Requeno feems to afilgn the exclufive poffevTion 

 <^f this art j becaufe the Egyptians, who with the Etrufcans 

 were the parents of the greater part of the inventions known 

 among mankind, and from whom the Greeks learned fo 

 much, were acquainted with and employed encauftic paint- 

 ing in the ancient ages of their greatnefs and fplendour, as is 

 proved by the valuable fragments of the bandages and 



coverings 



