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

pigment A pigment is a powder used to add or alter color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly solubility, insoluble and reactivity (chemistry), chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored sub ...

derived from the minerals celadonite and

glauconite Glauconite is an iron potassium phyllosilicate ( mica group) mineral of characteristic green color which is very friable and has very low weathering resistance. It crystallizes with a monoclinic geometry. Its name is derived from the Greek ...

. 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 a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Villa Boscoreale, many surrounding villas, the city was buried under of volcanic ash and p ...

and

Dura-Europos Dura-Europos was a Hellenistic, Parthian Empire, Parthian, and Ancient Rome, Roman border city built on an escarpment above the southwestern bank of the Euphrates river. It is located near the village of Al-Salihiyah, Deir ez-Zor Governorate, S ...

.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 (; – 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. He is remembered mainly f ...

claimed that “the ancients never gilded 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 Calcite is a Carbonate minerals, carbonate mineral and the most stable Polymorphism (materials science), polymorph of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is a very common mineral, particularly as a component of limestone. Calcite defines hardness 3 on ...

, 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