ALL the tastes and purposes that medieval painting served
made the use of metals an integral part of its technique.
Of all metals, gold was the most significant, not only for its
associations, its power to suggest richness and splendour and
homage and sacrifice; not only for its colour, valuably
yellow; not only for its lustre, the gleaming or sparkling
reflections that it could be made to produce; not only for
its permanence, its disinclination to tarnish, darken, or
become dull; not only for its adaptability, the convenience
with which large or small areas could be invested with
metal through its use: not for any of these causes alone, but
for all of them together, the medieval painter and his
patrons joined in an enthusiasm for this precious metal
which resulted in some of the most charming effects, wrought
by some of the most ingenious devices, in the painting of
the Middle Ages.

Tin was used, as white metal, sometimes glazed green for
variety with verdigris, or red with lakes, or lacquered
yellow as a substitute for gold. Silver, too, was esteemed
for many purposes, especially for rendering armour in
paintings of battle scenes and pageants; but it has generally
tarnished so completely that we often do not realize that it
was originally a white metal. (Cennino's warning against its
tendency to tarnish shows that even in medieval times that
defect had declared itself.) The use of silver followed almost
invariably the methods developed for the use of gold; and

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