Note 232 — Chapter XII · (XXVI.)

This passage presents some difficulty. It runs ‘Dunque, quelle che vanno in campo bianco, non ci essendo il campo di stucco per non essere bianca la calce, si dà per tutto sottilmente il campo di bianco.’ Vasari seems to have in his mind the difference between ordinary plaster made, as he has just described, of ‘lime mixed with sand in the ordinary fashion,’ which would not be white, and what he calls ‘stucco,’ by which term is probably meant the finer plaster made of white lime from travertine and marble dust. Ordinary plaster has accordingly to be coated with white before the work begins.