Note 530 — ALUM.
William Johnston translation
Anno 1458. “Rock alum, which the Greeks call pharno, was at this time first discovered by a Genoese in the territories of Volterra, where being boiled and found to be good, it began to be dug up afterwards in many of the mountains of Italy. Till that period the Italians had made no use of mines of this kind; for our alum was all brought from Turkey. The above discovery was therefore a great advantage to us.”