A Little Book on Colors

scarcely stained with any color, hanging from garlands. It is, however, a diminutive form, like Lycisca, Syrisca. Aquilus color The ancients called this Aquilus (eagle-colored/dark) as Fuscus (brown) from the color of water, which is between dark and white, which Plato also teaches.

WHITE (ALBVS) CHAP. IV.

White is the purest color, for which reason, when transferred to the mind, it is taken for sincere: it is nowhere brighter than in snow, which, however, Anaxagoras said snow was black. Anaxagoras affirmed to be black. It is taken to mean pale, whence "white fear" is read, and "he grew white with fear." For which reason Roman women formerly followed funerals in white clothing, just as if they were wearing the color of the dead whom they were carrying out. Candidus (shining white) gleams and delights the eyes. But Candens (glowing white) is not just this, but is understood as "ignited." Therefore, you would rightly call the shoulders of Venus Candidos or Candentes. Iron that is struck by a smith is not candidum, Canus. but candens. Of the same sort is Canus (hoary), which, even if it is transferred to other things, properly belongs to the hair and beard of the elderly. A horse is sometimes born canus and albienus (whitish), not the same as candidus or albus, but not lacking in this. There is also a color participating in white and black, called by the Greeks Leucophaeos, a term now used by our people. It is a kind of natural color, for it is not dyed, but the sheep itself is, as it were, painted by nature. This the most holy order of priests has adopted for itself, who, wearing no linen tunic underneath, bind themselves with a knotted rope as a belt, and using only wooden shoes, seek their living by begging.