Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Fullo

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

FULLO (κναφεύς). A fuller, a cleaner and scourer of cloth. (Mart. xiv. 51.) The fullers, who formed a very important body of tradesmen, were extensively employed in the same capacity as are our washerwomen, for cleaning and whitening garments after they had been worn; an operation which was effected by treading the clothes in large vats of water mixed with urine (Plin. H. N. xxviii. 18.), collected from vessels exposed in corners of the streets for the purpose. (Mart. vi. 93.) The cloth was then dried and bleached upon a semicircular frame (cavea viminea), placed over a pot of sulphur; after which it was hung up, and had the nap loosened and laid with brushes, or with a thistle (cardo fullonicus), from which it was removed to the press (pressorium), where it was finally smoothed and condensed by the action of the screw. The illustration (Fullo/1.1) represents a fuller at work in his tub, from a painting in the Fullonica at Pompeii.

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  Fullo/1.1