Ancient Science and Technology of Colour. Pigments, dyes, drugs and their perception in Antiquity

9:15 | Matteo Martelli (Bologna), Maria Michela Sassi (Pisa)
Welcome and Introduction

Morning session. Chair: Mattia Patti (Pisa University)

9:30 – 10:15 | Shiyanthi Thavapalan (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
How to do things with fire and water: Some observations on Mesopotamian craft practices

10:15 – 11:00 | Eduardo Escobar (Bologna University)
On the agency of change: Color and renewal in Assyro-Babylonian cultures

11:00 – 11:30 | Coffee break

11:30 – 12:15 | Giovanni Verri (The Art Institute of Chicago)
It’s the techne that makes the painter: Studies on the uses of pigments in ancient Greece and Rome

Afternoon session. Chair: Anna Anguissola (Pisa University)

14:15 – 15:15 | Gil Gambash, David Friesem and Beatrice Pestarino (Haifa Center for Mediterranean History)
From murex to fabric – The Mediterranean purple

15:15 – 16:00 | Hariclia Brecoulaki (National Hellenic Research Foundation)
Colour, seduction and persuasion in ancient Greece: The casestudy of a marble painted pyxis depicting Peitho and Aphrodite

16:00 – 16:30 | Coffee Break

16:30 – 17:15 | Agnès Rouveret (Paris X – Nanterre)
Certamen artis ac naturae. Matériaux et couleurs dans la définition plinienne de la peinture (Histoire naturelle, livre 35)

17:15 – 18:00 | Chiara Ballestrazzi (PhD, Scuola Normale Superiorte di Pisa)
The semantics of gemstones and their colours in Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia, Book 37

Morning session. Chair: Jan Stubbe Østergaard (Emeritus Research Curator, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek)

9:15 – 10:15 | Vinzenz Brinkmann (Liebighaus, Frankfurt),Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann (Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen)
The New Overbeck and the new edition of Pseudo-Democritus revisited. I. Ancient texts on colored metals in the light of experimental reconstructions. II. Ancient texts on pigments and dyes in the light of experimental reconstructions

10:15 – 10:45 | Coffee Break

10:45 – 11:30 | Agnese Benzonelli (Cambridge University)
Colouring metals black: A history of patination from ancient Egypt to modern Japan

11:30 – 12:15 | Matteo Martelli (Bologna University)
Divine waters and dyeing ‘sauces’: Changing colours and transforming matter

Afternoon session. Chair: Amneris Roselli (Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli)

14:15 – 15:00 | Cristina Viano (CNRS, Paris)
Nero alchemico: questioni di etimologia e trasmutazione

15:00 – 15:30 | Coffee Break

15:30 – 16:15 | Effie Photos-Jones (Glasgow University)
Ευφυεὶς χειροτέχναι (ingenious craftsmen) and the bioticallygenerated pigments /medicines of the Greco-Roman world

16:15 – 17:00 | Maria Michela Sassi (Pisa University)
A few remarks on the relationship between materials, technology and colour experience

17:00 – 17:30 | Matteo Martelli (Bologna), Maria Michela Sassi (Pisa)
Closing remarks