Stucco history - ecological paints and plaster

Antica Calce Lime Wash Paint can be identified in Roman construction and its use is clearly visible in the Pompeii and Herculean ruins in Southern Italy. This was the only interior/exterior paint available for painted surfaces, other than fresco or marmorino plaster tinted with earth pigments.

Potassium Silicate Mineral Paint was invented in the Middle Ages and is derived from a type of rock that consists of sodium silicate, which forms 90% of the earth's crust. It is considered inorganic (contains no VOC). Potassium Silicate reacts with mineral surfaces by reacting to carbon dioxide in the air, so with stucco, brick, plaster, stone, which naturally contain calcium carbonate, bonds with the surface material as a permanent stain.

Marmorino plaster has been in use since Roman times, and is in fact mentioned by the Roman author, Vitruvius, in his writings 100 BC, "De Architectura".

Marmo Antico could be considered an Italian farmer's or poor man's stucco.The basic ingredients of this material, unlike Marmorino and Grassello di Calce, is that the marble grains are not ground to a very fine powder.