What does «cerusa» mean in Spanish?
- Lead carbonate, white, also called albayalde, which was used as paint. Currently in disuse due to its toxic lead content. It was widely used in antiquity (the first known mention is made by Theophrastus, 372-287 BC, a student of Aristotle) until the early nineteenth century; at that time it was the only way to get a quality white to be used in oil painting. The English and Dutch were the main manufacturers. From the chemical point of view, ceruse is a salt, insoluble in water, resulting from the combination of carbonic acid with lead oxide.