On Color 1528 Thylesius

A 16^th century scholar Antonio Telesio probes ancient colour words and ideas, and foreshadows future trends. Professor Telesio was a spectacular top classics professor of his day. He wrote his book on Colours in Renaissance Italy at a time when he could discuss colour with Raphael, Leonardo and Titian. However he was not writing for painters but for his classics students, so they could better understanding Latin colour words and ancient colour ideas. It is not a coincidence then that Telesio’s twelve main colours can be put around a palette to create a very practical and ‘up-to-date’ Renaissance palette. Each of the twelve colours has a chapter to itself. But, in his Epilogue he not only talks classics but also presages the colour thinking of future artists from the Mannerists to the Impressionists. If he had written in a common tongue instead of Latin he would be as famous today as he was in his own day.