 Section 1 of Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Volume 1 by Georgia Vasari, translated by Gaston de Ville. Section 1, Translators Pre-Fast Divis Edition. Vasari introduces himself sufficiently in his own prefaces and introduction. A translator need concern himself only with a system by which the Italian text can best be rendered in English. The style of that text is sometimes labored in pompous, it is often grammatical. But the narrative is generally lively, full of neat phrases and abounding and quaint expressions. Many of them still recognizable in the modern Florentine vernacular. While, in such lives as those of Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michael Ognolo, Vasari shows how well he can write to a fine subject. His criticism is generally sound, solid, and direct, and he employs few technical terms, except in connection with architecture, where we find passages full of technicalities, often so loosely used that it is difficult to be sure of their exact meaning. In such cases, they have invariably adopted the rendering, which seemed most in accordance with Vasari's actual words. So far, these could be explained by professional advice and local knowledge, and I've included brief notes, where they appear to be indispensable. In Mrs. Foster's familiar English fire phrase, for a fire phrase it is rather than a translation, how Vasari's liveliness evaporates, even where its meaning is not blurred or misunderstood. Perhaps I have gone too far towards the other extreme in relying upon the Anglo-Saxon side of the English language, rather than upon the Latin, and in taking no liberties whatever with the text of 1568. My intention, indeed, has been to render my original word for word, and to err, if at all, in favor of literalness. The very structure of Vasari's sentences has usually been retained, though some freedom was necessary in the matter of the punctuation, which is generally bewildering. As Mr. Horn's only too rare translation of the life of Leonardo da Vinci as proof, it is by some such method that we can best keep Vasari's sense and Vasari's spirit, the one as important to the students of Italian art as is the other to the general reader. Such an attempt, however, places an English translator of the first volume at a conspicuous disadvantage. Throughout the earlier lives, Vasari seems to be feeling his way. He is not sure of himself, and his style is often awkward. The more faithful the attempted rendering, the more plainly must its awkwardness be reproduced. Vasari's introduction on technique has not been included, because it has no immediate connection with the lives. In any case, there already exists an adequate translation by Ms. McElhose. All Vasari's other prefaces and introductions are given in the order in which they are found in the edition of 1568. For this much explanation, I may pass the personal matters and record my thanks to many Florentine friends for help in technical and grammatical questions. Professor Baldwin-Brown for the notes on technical matters printed with Ms. McElhose's translation of Vasari on technique and to Mr. C.J. Holmes of the National Portrait Gallery for encouragement and a task which has proved no less pleasant than difficult. G. Ducey de Vie, London, March 1912 To the most illustrious and most excellent Sr. Cosimo de Medici, Duke of Florence, my most honoured lords, seeing that your excellency, following in this the footsteps of your most illustrious ancestors and incited an urge by your own natural magnanimity, teaches not to favour and to exalt every kind of talent, whatsoever it may be found, and shows particular favour to the arts of design, fondness for their craftsmen, and understanding in the light in their beautiful and rare works. I think that you cannot but take pleasure in this labour which I have undertaken of writing down the lives, the works, the manners and the circumstances of all those who, finding the arts already dead, first survived them, then step by step nourished and adorned them, and finally brought them to that height of beauty and majesty, whereon they stand at the present day. And because these masters have been almost all Tuscans and most of these Florentines, of whom many have been incited and aided by our most illustrious ancestors with every kind of reward and honour to put themselves to work, it may be said that in your state, nay, in your most blessed house, the arts were born in you, and that through the generosity of your ancestors, the world has recovered these most beautiful arts, through which it has been ennobled and embellished. Wherefore, through the depth which this age, these arts and these craftsmen owe to your ancestors, and to you as the heir of their virtue and of their patronage of these professions, and through the depth which I, above all, owe them, seeing that I was taught by them, that I was their subject and their devoted servant, that I was brought up under Cardinal Ipolito de Medici and under Alessandro, your predecessor, and that, finally, I am infinitely attached to the blessed memory of the magnificent Ottaviano de Medici by whom I was supported, loved and protected while he lived. For all these reasons, I say, and because from the greatness of your words and of your fortunes, there will come much favour for this work, and from your understanding of its subject, there will come a better appreciation than from any other first usefulness, and for the labour and the diligence that I have given to its execution. It has seemed to me that to your Excellency alone could it be fittingly dedicated, and it is under your most honoured name that I have wished it to come to the hands of men. Dane, then, Excellency, to accept it, to favour it, and, if this may be granted to it by your exalted thoughts, sometimes to read it. Having regard to the nature of the matter that I am dealt with and to my pure intention, which has been not to gain for myself praise as a writer, but as craftsmen to praise the industry and to revive the memory of those who, having given life and adornment to these professions, do not deserve to have their names and their works fully left. Even as they were the prey of death and of oblivion, besides, at the same time, to the example of so many able men and through so many observations and so many works that I have gathered together in this book, I have thought to help not a little the masters of these exercises and to please all those who therein have taste and pleasure. This I have striven to do with that accuracy and with that good faith which are essential for the truth of history and of things written. But, if my writing, being unpalished and as artless as my speech, be in worthy of your excellency's ear and of the merits of so many most illustrious intellects. As for them, pardon me that the pen is a drop's man, such as they too were, has no greater power to give them outline and shadow. And as for yourself, let it suffice me that your excellency should deign to approve my simple labour, remembering that the necessity of gaining for myself the wherewithal to live has left me no time to exercise myself with any instrument but the brush. But even with that have I reached that goal to which I think to be able to attain now that fortune promises me so much favour, that, with greater ease and greater credit for myself and the greater satisfaction to others, I may per chance be able, as well with the pen as with the brush, to unfold my ideas to the world, whatsoever they may be. For besides the help and protection for which I must hope from your excellency, as my liege learned and as a protector of poor followers of the arts, it has pleased the goodness of God to elect us as a speaker on earth, the most holy and most blessed Julius III, Supreme Pontiff, and a friend and patron of every kind of excellence, and of these most excellent and most difficult arts in particular, from whose example of liberality I expect recompense for many years spent and many labours expended, and up to now without fruit. And not only I, who have dedicated myself to the perpetual service of His Holiness, but all the gifted craftsmen of this age must expect from Him such honor and reward and opportunities for practicing the arts so greatly. But already I rejoice to see these arts arriving in His time at the greatest height of their perfection, and roam adorned by craftsmen so many and so noble that counting them with those of Florence, whom your excellency is calling every day into activity, I hope that someone after our time will have to write a pause part to my book and enriching it with other masters and other masterpieces than those described by me, in which company I am striving with every effort not to be among the last. Meanwhile, I am content if your excellency has good hopes of me and a better opinion than that which, by no fault of mine, you have per chance conceived of me, but teaching you not to let me be undone in your estimation by the malignant tales of other men, until at last my life and my works shall prove the contrary to what they say. Now with that intent, to which I hold, always to honor and to serve your excellency, dedicating to you this my rough labor, as I have dedicated to you every other thing of mine and my own self, I implore you not to disdain to grant it your protection or at least to appreciate the devotion of Him who offers it to you and recommending myself to your gracious goodness, most humbly do I kiss your hand. Your excellency's most humble servant, Georgia Vasari, painter of Arezzo. To the most illustrious and most excellent, Sr. Cosimo de Medici, Duke of Florence and Siena, my most honored lord, behold, seventeen years since I first presented to your most illustrious excellency the lives sketched, so to speak, of the most famous painters, sculptors, and architects. They come before you again, not indeed wholly finished, but so much changed from what they were and in such a wise, adorned, and enriched with innumerable works, where, up to that time, they had been able to gain no further knowledge. Then from my endeavor, and in so far as in me, life nothing more can be looked in for them. Behold, I say, once again they come before you, most illustrious and truly most excellent lord, Duke. For the addition of other noble and right-famous craftsmen, who from the time up to our own day have passed from the miseries of this life to a better, and of others who, although they are still living in our midst, have labored in these professions such purpose that they are most worthy of eternal memory. And in truth, it has been no small good fortune for many that I, by the goodness of him in whom all things have their being, have lived so long that I have almost written this book, seeing that, even if I have removed many things which had been included, I know not how, in my absence and without my consent, and have changed others, so too I have added many, both useful and necessary, that were lacking. And as for the likenesses and portraits of so many men of birth, which I have placed in this work, where, of a great part, have been furnished by the help and cooperation of your excellency, if they are sometimes not very true to life, and if they all have not that character and resemblance which the vivacity of callers is one to give them, that is not because the drawing and the liniments have not been taken from the life and are not characteristic and natural, not to mention that a great part of them have been sent me by the friends that I have in various places, and they have not all been drawn by a good hand. Moreover, I have suffered no small inconvenience in this from the distance of those who have engraved these heads, because, if the engravers had been near me, it might per chance have been possible to use in this matter more diligence and has been shown. But however this may be, our lovers of art and our craftsmen, for the convenience and benefits of whom I have put myself to so great pains, must be wholly indebted to your most illustrious excellency for whatever they may find in it of the good, the useful, and the helpful. Seeing that while engaged in your service I have had the opportunity to the leisure which it has pleased you to give me and to the management of your many nay innumerable treasures, to put together and to give to the world everything which appear to be necessary for the perfect completion of this work and would it not be almost impiety, not to say ingratitude, were I to dedicate these lives to another or were the craftsmen to attribute to any other than yourself, whatever they may find in them to give them help or pleasure? For not only was it with your help in favor that they first came to the light as now they do again, but you are an imitation and sole protector of these hour arts where for it is very right and reasonable that by these there should be made in your service and to your eternal and perpetual memory so many most noble pictures and statues and so many marvelous buildings in every manner. But if we are all, as indeed we are beyond calculation, most deeply obliged to you for these and for other reasons, how much more do I not owe you who have always had, with that my brain and my hand had been equal to my desire and my good will, so many valuable opportunities to display my little knowledge which, whatsoever it may be, fails by a very great measure to counterbalance the greatness and the truly royal magnificence of your mind. But how may I tell? It is a truth better that I should stay as I am, than that I should set myself to attempt what could be to the most lofty and noble brain and much more so to my insignificance wholly impossible. Your most illustrious excellency, this my book, or rather indeed your book of the lives of the craftsmen of design and like the Almighty God, looking rather at my soul and at my good intentions than at my work, take from me with right good will not what I would wish and ought to give, but what I can. Your most illustrious excellencies, most indebted servant, Giorgio Vasari, Florence, January 9, 1568 and of section one. Recording by Hilary Hovind. Section two of the lives of the most eminent painters, sculptors and architects Volume one. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Mary Ann Coleman-Hipkins. Lives of the most eminent painters, sculptors and architects Preface to the whole work It was the want of the finest spirits in all their actions through a burning desire for glory to spare no labour, however grievous in order to bring their works to that perfection which might render them impressive and marvellous to the whole world. Nor could the humble fortunes of many prevent their energies from attaining to the highest rank, nor could the humble fortunes of many prevent their energies from attaining to the highest rank whether in order to live in honour or to leave in the ages to come eternal fame for all their rare excellence. And although for zeal and desire so worthy of praise they were while living highly rewarded by the liberality of princes and by the splendid ambition of states and even after death kept alive in the eyes of the world by the testimony of statues tombs, medals and other memorials of that kind. Nonetheless it is clearly seen that the ravening more of time has not only diminished by a great amount their own works and the honourable testimonies of others but has also blotted out and destroyed the names of all those who have been kept alive by any other means than by the right vivacious and pious pens of writers pondering over this matter many a time in my own mind and recognising from the example not only of the ancients but of the moderns as well that the names of very many architects sculptors and painters both old and modern together with innumerable most beautiful works wrought by them are going on being forgotten and destroyed little by little and in such wise in truth that nothing can be told for them but a certain and well-nigh immediate death and wishing to defend them as much as in me lies from the second death and to preserve them as long as may be possible in the memory of the living and having spent much time in seeking them out and used the greatest diligence in discovering the native city the origin and the actions of the craftsman and having with great labour drawn from them the tales of old men and from various records and writings left by their ears a prey to dust and food for worms and finally having received from this both profit and pleasure I have judged it expedient nay rather my duty to make for them what's over memorial my weak talents and my small judgement may be able to make an honour then of those who are already dead and for the benefit for the most part of all the followers of these three most excellent arts architecture, sculpture and painting I will write the lives of the craftsman of each according to the times wherein they lived step by step from Simibu down to our own time not touching on the ancients saving so far as it may concern our subject seeing that no more can be said of them than those so many writers have said who have come down to our own age I will treat thoroughly of many things that appertain to the science of one or other of the said arts but before I come to the secrets of these or to the history of the craftsman it seems to me right to touch a little on a dispute born and bred between many without reason as to the sovereignty and nobility not of architecture which they have left on one side but of sculpture and painting they've been advanced on one side and on the other many arguments whereof many if not all are worthy to be heard and discussed by the craftsman I say then that the sculptors has been endowed per chance by nature and by the exercise of their art with a better habit of body with more blood and with more energy and being thereby more hardy and more fiery than the painters and seeking to give the highest ranked their art argue and prove the nobility of sculpture primarily from its antiquity for the reason that God Almighty made man who was the first statue and they say that sculpture embraces many more arts as kindred and has many more of them subordinate to itself than as painting such as low relief working in clay, wax plaster, wood and ivory casting in metals every kind of chasing engraving and carving and relief on fine stones and steel and many others which both in number and in difficulty surpass those of painting and alleging further that those things which stand longest and best against time and can be preserved longest for the use of men for whose benefit and service they are made are without doubt more useful and more worthy to be held in love and honour than are the others they maintain that sculpture is by so much more noble than painting as it is more easy to preserve both itself and the names of all who are honoured by it both in marble and in bronze against all the ravages of time and year than is painting which by its very nature not to say by external accidents perishes in the most sheltered and most secure places that architects have been able to provide nay more they insist that the small number not merely of the excellent but even of the ordinary craftsman to the infinite number of painters proves their great inability saying that sculpture cause for a certain better disposition both of mind and of body that are really found together whereas painting contents itself with any feeble temperament so long as it has a hand if not bold at least sure and that this their contention is proved by the greater prices cited in particular by Pliny by the loves caused by the marvellous beauty of certain statues and by the judgment of him who made the statue a sculpture of gold and that of painting of silver and placed the first on the right and the second on the left nor do they even refrain from quoting the difficulties experienced before the materials such as the marbles and the metals can be got into subjection and their value in contrast to the years of obtaining the panels the canvases and the colours for the smallest prices and in every place and further the extreme and grievous labour of handling the marbles and the bronzes through their weight and of working them through the weight of the tools in contrast to the lightness of the brushes of the styles and of the pens chalk holders and charcoal besides this they exhaust their minds together with all the parts of their bodies which is something very serious compared with the quiet and light work of the painter using only his mind and hand moreover they lay very great stress on the fact that things are more noble and more perfect in proportion as they approach more nearly to the truth and they say that sculpture imitates the true form and shows its works on every side and from every point of view whereas painting being laid on flat with most simple strokes of the brush and having but one light shows but one aspect and many of them do not scruple to say that sculpture is as much superior to painting as is truth to falsehood but as their last and strongest argument they allege that for the sculptor it is necessary a perfection of judgement not only ordinary as for the painter but absolute and immediate in a manner that it may see within the marble the exact hole of that figure which they intend to carve from it and may be able to make many parts perfect without any other model before it combines and unites them together as Michel Lagner Law has done to finally well for lack of this happiness of judgement they make easily and often some of those blunders which have no remedy and which when made be a witness forever to the slips of the chisel or to the small judgement of the sculptor this never happens to painters for the reason that at every slip of the brush or air of judgement that might before them they have time recognising it themselves or been told by others to cover and patch it up the very brush that made it which brush in their hands has this advantage over the sculptor's chisels that it not only heals as did the iron of the spear of Achilles but leaves its wounds without a scar the painters answering not without disdain say in the first place that if the sculptors wish to discuss the matter on the ground of the scriptures the chief nobility is their own and that the sculptors deceive themselves very grievously claiming as their work the statue of our first father which was made of earth for the art of this performance both in its putting on and in its taking off belongs no less to the painters than to others and was called Plastes by the Greeks and Fictora by the Latins and was judged by Praxitales to be the mother of sculpture, of casting and of chasing a fact which makes sculpture in truth self-painting, seen that Plastes and painting are born at one and the same moment from design and they say that if we consider it apart from the scriptures the opinions of the ages are so many and so varied that it is difficult to believe one more than the other and that finally considering this nobility as they wish it in one place they lose and in the other they do not win as may be seen more clearly in the preface to the lives after this in comparison with the arts related and subordinate to sculpture they say that they have many more than the sculptors because painting embraces the invention of history, the most difficult art of foreshortening or the branches of architecture needful for the making of buildings perspective, colouring and distemper and the art of working in fresco an art different and distinct from all the others likewise working in oils on wood on stone and on canvas illumination too an art different from all the others the staining of glass, mosaics and glass, the art of inlain and making pictures with coloured woods which is painting making graffiti work on houses with iron tools neelio work and printing from copper both members of painting amelaine and the inlain of gold for damascenine the painting of glazed figures and the making on earthenware vessels of scenes and figures to resist the action of water weaving brocades with figures and flowers and that most beautiful invention, woven tapestries that are both convenient and magnificent been able to carry painting into every place whether savage or civilised not to mention that in every department of art that has to be practice design, which is our design is used by all so that the members of painting are more numerous and more useful than those of sculpture they do not deny the eternity for so the others call it of sculpture but they say that this is no privilege that should make the art more noble than it is by nature seen that it comes simply from the material and that if the length of life were to give nobility to souls pine among the plants and the stag among the animals would have a soul more noble beyond compare than that of men although they could claim a similar immortality and nobility in their mosaics seeing that there may be seen some as ancient as the most ancient sculptures that are in Rome and that they used to be made of jewels and fine stones and as for their small or smaller number they declare that this is not because the art calls for better habit of body and greater judgment but that it depends wholly on the poverty of their resources and on the little favour or avarice as we would rather call it of rich men who give them no supply of marble and no opportunity to work in contrast with what may be believed in a scene to have happened in ancient times when sculpture rose at its greatest height indeed it is manifest that he who cannot use and waste a small quantity of marble and hard stone which are very costly cannot have that practice in the art that is essential he who does not practice does not learn it and he who does not learn it can do no good wherefore they should rather excuse with these arguments the imperfection and the small number of their masters then seek to deduce nobility from them under false colours as for the higher prices of sculptures they answer that although theirs might be much less they have not had to share them being content with a boy who grinds their colours and hands them their brushes or their cheap stools whereas the sculptors besides the great cost of their material require many aides and spend more time on one single figure than they themselves do on very many wherefore their prices appear to come from the quality and durability of the material itself from the aides that it requires for its completion and from the time that is taken and working it rather than from the excellence of the art itself and although that does not suffice and no greater price is found as would be easily seen by anyone who were willing to consider it diligently let them find a greater price than the marvellous beautiful and living gift that Alexander the Great made in return for the most splendid and excellent work of a palace bestowed on him not vast treasures or high estate but his own beloved and most beautiful, Campaspe let them observe in addition that Alexander was young and a more of her and naturally subject to the passions of love and also both the king and the greek and them from this let them draw what conclusion they please as for the loves of Pygmalion and of those other rascals no more worthy to be men cited as proof of the nobility of the art they know not what to answer if from a very great blindness of intellect and from a licentiousness unbridled beyond all natural bounds there can be made a proof of nobility as for the man whosoever he was alleged by the sculptors to have made the sculpture of gold and painting of silver they are agreed that if he had given as much sign of judgment as of wealth there would be no disputing it and finally they conclude that the ancient golden fleece however celebrated it may be nonetheless covered nothing but an unintelligent ram wherefore neither the testimony of riches nor that of dishonest desires but those of letters of practice of excellence and of judgment and of those to which we must pay attention nor do they make any answer to the difficulty of obtaining the marbles and the metals save this that it springs from their own poverty and from the little favour of the powerful as has been said and not from any degree of greater nobility to the extreme fatigues of the body and to the dangers peculiar to them and to their works laughing and without any ado they answer that if greater fatigues and dangers prove greater nobility the art of quarrying the marbles from the bowels of the mountains by means of wedges, levers and hammers must be more noble than sculpture that of the blacksmith must surpass the goldsmith and that of masonry must be superior to architecture they say next that the true difficulties lie rather in the mind than in the body wherefore those things that from their nature call for more study and knowledge are more noble and excellent than those that avail themselves rather of strength of body and they declare that since the painters rely more on the worth of the mind than the others this highest honour belongs to painting for the sculptors, the compasses and squares suffice to discover and to ply all the proportions and measurements whereof they have need for the painters there is necessary besides the knowledge how to make instruments, an accurate understanding of perspective for the reason that they have to provide a thousand other things beyond landscapes and buildings not to mention that they must have greater judgement by reason of the quality of the figures in one scene wherein more eras can come than in a single statue for the sculptor it is enough to be acquainted with the true forms and features of solid intangible bodies subordinate on every side to the touch and moreover of those only that have something to support them for the painter it is necessary to know the forms not only of all the bodies supported and not supported but also of all those transparent and intangible and besides this they must know the colours that are suitable for the stead bodies whereof the multitude and the varieties so absolute the permitting of such infinite extension are demonstrated better by the flowers, the fruits and the minerals than by anything else and this knowledge is supremely difficult to acquire and to maintain by reason of the infinite variety they say moreover that we're a sculpture through the stubbornness and the imperfection of the material does not represent the emotions of the soul save with motion which does not however, find much scope therein and with the mere shape of the limbs and not even all of these painters demonstrate them with all the forms of motion which are infinite with the shape of the limbs however subtle they may be and even with breath itself and the spiritual essence of sight and that for greater perfection and demonstrating not only the passions and emotions of the soul but also the events of the future as living men do they must have besides long practice in the art a complete understanding of physiognomy whereof that part suffices for the sculptor which deals with the quantity and the quality of the members without troubling about the quality of colours as to the knowledge of which anyone who judges by the eye knows how useful and necessary it is for the true imitation of nature the closer a man approaches the more perfect he is after this they add that whereas sculpture taken away bit by bit at one in the same time gives depth to and acquires relief for those things that have solidity by their own nature and it makes use of touch and sight the painters in two distinct actions give relief and depth to a flat surface with the help of one single sense and this when it has been done by a person intelligent in the art has caused many great men not to speak of animals to stand fast in the most pleasing illusion which has never been seen to be done by sculpture for the reason that it does not imitate nature in a manner that may be called as perfect as their own and finally in answer to that complete and absolute perfection of judgement which is required for sculpture for the reason of its having no means to add where it takes away declaring first that such mistakes are irreparable as the others say and not to be remedied saved by patches which even as in garments they are signs of poverty of wardrobe so too both in sculpture and in pictures are signs of poverty of intellect and judgement and saying further that patience at its own leisure enables protractors, squares, compasses and a thousand other devices and instruments for enlarging not only preserves them from mistakes but enables them to bring their whole work to its perfection they conclude then that this difficulty which they put down as the greater is nothing or little when compared to those which the painters have when working in fresco and that the said perfection of judgement is certainly more necessary for sculptors than for painters it being sufficient for the former to execute good models in wax clay or something else even as the latter make their drawings on corresponding materials or on cartoons and that finally the quality that little by little transfers their models to the marbles is rather patience than odd house but let us consider about judgement as the sculptors wish to see whether it is not more necessary to one who works in fresco than to one who chisels in marble for here not only is there no place for patience or for time which are most mortal enemies to the union of the plaster and the colours but the eye does not see the true colours until the plaster is well dry nor can the hand judge of anything but of the soft or the dry in a manner that anyone who were to call it working in the dark or spectacles of colours different from the truth would not in my belief be very far on nay, I do not doubt at all that such a name is more suitable for it than for intaglio for which wax serves as spectacles both true and good they say too that for this work it is necessary to have a resolute judgement to foresee the end in the fresh plaster and how the work will turn out on the dry the work cannot be abandoned so long as the plaster is still fresh and that it is necessary to do resolutely in one day what sculpture does in a month and if a man has not this judgement and this excellence there are seen on the completion of his work or in time patches, blotches, corrections and colours superimposed or retouched on the dry which is something of the vilest because afterwards mould appears and reveals the insufficiency and the small knowledge of the craftsman even as the pieces added in sculpture lead to ugliness not to mention that when it comes about that the figures in fresco are washed as is often done after some time to restore them what has been worked on the fresh plaster remains and what has been retouched on the dry is carried away by the wet sponge they add more over that whereas the sculptors make two figures together or at the most three from one block of marble they make many of them on one single panel with all those so many and so varied aspects which the sculptors claim for one single statue compensating with the variety of their postures for shortening and attitudes for the fact that the work of the sculptors is being done from every side even as Giorgione Dalcastel Franco did once in one of his pictures wherein a figure with its back turned having a mirror on either side and a pool of water at its feet shows its back in the painting its front in the pool and its sides in the mirrors which is something that sculpture has never been able to do in addition to this they maintain that painting the elements unadorned and not abounding with all the excellent things that nature has bestowed on them giving its own light and its own darkness to the air with all its varieties of feeling and filling it with all the kinds of birds together to water its clearness the fishes the mosses the foam the undulations of the waves the ships and all its various moods and to the earth the mountains the plains the plants the fruits the flowers the animals and the buildings with so great a multitude of things and so great a variety of their forms and their true colours that nature herself many a time stands in a marvel there at and finally giving to via so much of its heat and light that it is clearly seen burning things and almost quivering with its flames rendering luminous in part the thickest darkness of the night where for it appears to them that they can justly conclude and declare that contrast in the difficulties of the sculptors with their own the labours of the body with those of the mind the imitation of the mere form with the imitation of the impression both of quantity and of quality that strikes the eye the small number of the subjects the sculptor can and does demonstrate its excellence with the infinite number of those which painting presents to us not to mention the perfect preservation of them for the intellect and the distribution of them in those places where in nature herself has not done so and finally weighing the whole content of the one with that of the other the nobility of sculpture as shown by the intellect the invention and the judgment of its craftsmen does not correspond by a great measure to that which painting enjoys and deserves and this is all that on the one side and on the other has come to my ears that is worthy of consideration but because it appears to me that the sculptors has spoken with too much heat and the painters with too much disdain and seen that I have long enough studied the works of sculpture and have ever exercised myself in painting however small perhaps may be the fruit that is to be seen of it. Nonetheless by reason of that which it has worth and by reason of the undertaking of these writings judging it my duty to demonstrate the judgment that I have ever made of it in my own mind and may my authority avail the most that it can I will declare my opinion surely and briefly over such a dispute being convinced that I will not incur any charge of presumption or of ignorance seen that I will not treat of the arts of others as many have done before to the end that they might appear to the crowd intelligent in all things by means of letters and as has happened among others to Formio the peripatic of Euthias who in order to display his eloquence lecturing and making disputation about the virtues and parts of the excellent captain made Hannibal laugh not less at his presumption then at his ignorance I say then that sculpture and painting are in truth sisters born from one father that is design at one and the same birth and have no precedence one over the other save in so much as the worth and the strength of those who maintain them make one craftsman surpass another page 34 and not by reason of any difference or degree of nobility that is in truth to be found between them and although by reason of the diversity of their essence they have many different advantages these are neither so great nor of such a kind that they do not come exactly into balance together and that we do not perceive the infatuation or the obstinacy rather than the judgment of those who wish to surpass the other wherefore it may be said with reason that one and the same soul rules the bodies of both and by reason of this I conclude that those do evil who strive to disunite and to separate the one from the other heaven wishing to underceive us in this matter and to show us the kinship and the union of these two most noble arts has raised up in our midst at various times many sculptors who have painted and many painters who have worked in sculpture as will be seen in the life of Antonio del Pola Uolo of Leonardo da Vinci and of many others long since passed away but in our own age the divine goodness has created for us Michelangelo Buonorati in whom both these arts shine forth so perfect and appears so similar and so closely united the artist marvel at his pictures and the sculptors feel for the sculptures wrought by him supreme admiration and reverence on him to the end that he might not perchance need to seek from some other master some convenient resting place for the figures that he wrought nature has bestowed so generously the science of architecture that without having need of others' strength and power within himself to give to this all the other image made by himself an honorable and suitable resting place in a manner that he rightly deserves to be called the king of sculptors the prince of painters and the most excellent of architects nay rather of architecture the true master and indeed we can affirm with certainty that those do in no way air be called him divine seeing that he has within his own self embraced the three arts most worthy of praise and the most ingenious that are to be found among mortal men and that with these after the manner of a god he can give us infinite delight and let this suffice for the dispute raised between the factions and for our own opinion now returning to my first intention I say that wishing insofar as it lies within the reach of my powers to drag from the ravening more of time the names of the sculptors painters and architects who from Cinnabu to the present day have been of some notable excellence in Italy and desiring that this my labour may be no less useful than it has been pleasant to me in the undertaking it appears to me necessary before we come to the history to make as briefly as may be an introduction to these three arts wherein those were valiant of whom I am to write the lives to the end that every gracious spirit may first learn the most notable things in their professions and afterwards may be able with greater pleasure and benefit to see clearly in what they were different among themselves and how great adornment and convenience they give to their countries and to all who wish to avail themselves of their industry and knowledge I will begin then with architecture as the most universal and the most necessary and useful to men and as that for the service and adornment of which the two others exist and I will expound briefly the varieties of stone, the manners or methods of construction with their proportions and how one may recognise buildings that are good and well conceived afterwards to scorzing of sculpture I will tell how statues are wrought the form and the proportion that are looked for in them and of what kind are good sculptures with all the most secret and most necessary precepts finally treating of painting I will speak of draftsmanship the methods of colouring of the perfect execution of any work of the quality of the pictures themselves and of what so ever thing abotains to painting of every kind of mosaic of Nelio, of Enamelin, of Damasceni and then lastly of the printing of pictures and in this way I am convinced that these my labours will delight those who are not engaged in these pursuits and will both delight and help those who have made them a profession for to not mention that in the introduction they will review the methods of working and that in the lives of the craftsmen themselves they will learn where their works are and how to recognise easily their perfection or imperfection and how to discriminate between one manner and another. They will also be able to perceive how much praise and honour that man deserves who adds upright ways and goodness of life to the excellencies of art so noble kindled by the praise that those so constituted have obtained they too will aspire to true glory nor will little fruit be gathered from the history, true guide and mistress of our actions in reading of the infinite variety of innumerable accidents that befell the craftsmen sometimes by their own fault and very often by chance. It remains for me to make excuse for having on occasion used some words of indifferent tuskin whereof I do not wish to speak having ever taken thought to use rather the words and names particular and proper to our arts in the delicate or choice words of precious writers. Let me be allowed then to use in their proper speech the words proper to our craftsmen and let all content themselves with my good will which has bestowed itself to produce this result not in order to teach to others what I do not know myself but through a desire to preserve this memory at least of the most celebrated craftsmen seen that in so many decades I have not yet been able to see one who has made much record of them. For I have wished with these my rough labours at embracing their noble deeds to repay to them in some measure the debt that I owe to their works which have been to me as masters for the learning of whatsoever I know rather than living in slough to be a malignant critic of the works of others blaming and decrying them as men are often want to do but it is now time to come to our business End of Section 2 Recording by Marianne Coleman-Hipkins www.thespois4u.com Section 3 of Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptures and Architects, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit www.librivox.org Recording by Leni Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptures and Architects, Volume 1 by Giorgio Vasari Translated by Gaston de Verre Section 3 Preface to the Lives I have no manner of doubt that it is with almost all that sculpture and painting together were first discovered by the light of nature by the people of Egypt and that there are certain others who attribute to the Chaldeans the first rough sketches in marble and the first reliefs in statuary even as they also give to the Greeks the invention of the brush and of coloring But I will surely say that of both one and the other of these arts which is their foundation may rather the very soul that conceives and nourishes within itself all the parts of men's intellect was already most perfect before the creation of all other things when the Almighty God having made the great body of the world and having adorned the heavens with their exceeding bright lights descended lower with his intellect into the clearness of the air the solidity of the earth and shaping men discovered together with the lovely creation of all things the first form of sculpture from which men afterwards step by step and this may not be denied as from a true pattern there were taken statues sculptures and the science of pose and of outline and for the first pictures whatsoever they were and the concord and discord that comes from light and shade thus then the first model whence their issue the first image of men was a lump of clay and not without reason seeing that the divine architect of time and of nature being himself most perfect wished to show in the imperfection of the material the way to add and to take away in the same manner sculptures and painters are one to work who adding and taking away in their models bring their imperfect sketches to that final perfection which they desire he gave to men that most vivid color of flesh whence afterwards they were drawn for painting from the minds of the earth the collars themselves for the counter-fating of all those things that are required for pictures it is true indeed that it cannot be affirmed for certain what was made by the men before the flood in these arts in imitation of so beautiful a work although it is reasonable to believe that they too carved and painted in every manner seeing that bellis son of the proud Nimrod about 200 years after the flood caused to be made that statue where from there was afterwards born idolatry of the son's wife the very famous Samirimis queen of Babylon in the building of that city placed among its adornments not only diverse variety of animals portrayed and colored from nature but also the image of herself and of Nines her husband and moreover statues in bronze of her husband's father of her husband's mother and of the mother of the latter who might exist Jov, Juno and Ops from these statues for chance the Chaldeans learned to make the images of their gods seeing that 150 years later Rachel, inflying from Mesopotamia together with Jacob her husband stole the idols of Laban her father as is clearly related in Genesis nor indeed were the Chaldeans alone in making sculptures and pictures but the Egyptians made them also exercising themselves in these arts with that so great zeal which is shown in the marvelous tomb of the most ancient king Osimandias copiously described by Deodorus and proved by the stern commandment made by Moses in the exodus from Egypt namely that under pain of death there should be made to god no image whatsoever he on descending from the mountain he found the golden calf wrought and adored solemnly by his people and being greatly perturbed to see divine honors paid to the image of a beast not only broke it and reduced it to powder but for punishment of so great a sin caused many thousands of the wicked sons of Israel to be slain by the Levites but because not the making of statues but their adoration was a deadly sin that the art of design and of statuary not only in marble but in every kind of metal was bestowed by the mouth of god on bezaleel of the tribe of Judah and on Aholiab of the tribe of Dan who were those that made the two carabin of gold the candlesticks, the veal the borders of the priestly vestments and so many other most beautiful castings for the tabernacle for no other reason than for the people to contemplate and to adore them from the things seen before the flood then the pride of men found the way to make the statues of those for whom they wished that they should remain famous and immortal in the world and the Greeks who think differently about this origin say that the Ethiopians invented the first statues as theodorus tells that the Egyptians took them from the Ethiopians to the Greeks for by Homer's time sculpture and painting are seen to have been perfected as it is proved in the squorsing of the shield of Achilles by that divine poet who shows it to us carved and painted rather than described with every form of art Latinxius fermianus by way of fable attributes it to Prometheus who in the manner of Almighty God shaped men's image out of mud and from him he declares the art of statuary came but according to what Pliny writes this came to Egypt from Gygus the Lydian who being by the fire and gazing at his own shadow suddenly with some charcoal in his hand drew his own outline on the wall and from that age for a time outlines only were want to be used with no body of color and that is what Pliny confirms which method was rediscovered with more labor by Philakles the Egyptian and likewise by Cleanthes and artises of Corinth and by Telephanus of Sisyon Cleopanthes of Corinth was the first among the Greeks who used collars and Apollodorus the first to discover the brush there followed Polygnotus of Thassus Xuxes and Temagoras of Colchis and the most famous of Pellis so much esteemed and honored by Alexander the Great for his talent and the most ingenious investigator of slender and false favor as Lucian shows us even as almost all the excellent painters and sculptures were endowed by heaven in nearly every case not only with the adornment of poetry as may be read of Pocovius but with philosophy besides and Metrodorus who being as well versed in philosophy as in painting was sent by the Athenians to Paul as Emilius to adorn his triumph and remain with him to read philosophy to his sons the art of sculpture then was greatly exercised in Greece and there appeared many excellent craftsmen and among others Phidias and Athenian with Praxiteles and Polycletus all very great masters while Lysippus and Pergoteles were excellent in sunk reliefs and Pygmalion in reliefs in ivory of whom there is a fable that by his prayers he obtained breath and spirit for the figure of a virgin that he made painting likewise was honored and rewarded by the ancient Greeks and Romans seeing that to those who made it appear marvelous they showed favor by bestowing on them citizenship and the highest dignities so greatly did this art flourish in Rome that Fabius gave renown to his house by writing his name under the thing so beautifully painted by him in the temple of Salus and calling himself Fabius Pictor it was forbidden by public decree that slaves should exercise this art throughout the cities and so much honor did the nations pay without seizing to the art and to the craftsmen the rarest works were sent among the triumphal spoils as marvelous things to Rome and the finest craftsmen were freed from slavery and recompensed with honors and rewards by the commonwealths the Romans themselves bore so great reverence for these arts that besides the respect that Marcellus in second the city of Syracuse commanded to be paid to a craftsman famous in them for the salt of the aforesaid city they took care not to set fire to that quarter wherein there was a most beautiful painted panel which was afterwards carried to Rome in the triumph with much pomp Vitter, having so to speak despoiled the world in course of time they assembled the craftsmen themselves as well as their finest works wherewith afterwards Rome became so beautiful from the statues from abroad more than from her own native ones it being known that in Rhodes, the city of an island in no way large there were more than 3,000 statues counted either in bronze or in marble nor did the Athenians have less while those at Olympia and at Delphi were many more and those in Corinth numberless and all were most beautiful and of the greatest value in Rome that Nicomedes, king of Lycia in his eagerness for the Venus that was by the hand of Precittalis spent on it almost all the wealth of his people did not Attalus the same who in order to possess the picture of Bacchus painted by Aristides did not scruple to spend on it more than 6,000 cesteruses which picture was placed by Lycia's mummies in the temple of Ceres with the greatest pomp in order to adorn Rome but for all that the nobility of these arts was so highly valued it is nonetheless not yet known for certain who gave them their first beginning for, as has been already said above it appears most ancient among the Chaldeans some give it to the Ethiopians and the Greeks attribute it to themselves and it may be thought not without reason that it is perchance even more ancient among the Etruscans where Leon Battista Alberti testifies whereof we have clear enough proof in the marvelous tomb of Porcena at Cusi where no long time since there were discovered underground between the walls of the Labyrinth some terracotta tiles with figures on them in half relief so excellent and in so beautiful a manner that it can be easily recognized that the art was not begun precisely at that time nay, rather, by reason of the infection of these works that it was much nearer its height than its beginning to this, moreover, witness is likewise borne by our seeing everyday many pieces of those red and black vases of Arezzo made as may be judged from the manner about those times with the most delicate carvings and small figures and scenes in low relief and many small round masks wrought with great subtlety by masters of that age men most experienced as is shown by the effect and most excellent in that art it may be seen moreover by reason of the statues found at Viterbo at the beginning of the pontificate of Alexander the Six that sculpture was in great esteem and in no small perfection among the Etruscans and although it is not known precisely at what time they were made it may be reasonably conjectured both from the manner of the figures and from the style of the tombs and of the buildings no less than from the inscriptions in those Etruscan letters that they are most ancient and were made at a time when the affairs of this country were in a good and prosperous state but what clearer proof of this can be sought seeing that in our own day that is in the year 1554 there has been found a bronze figure of the Chimera in making the ditches, fortifications and walls of Arezzo from which figure it is recognized that the perfection of that art existed in ancient times among the Etruscans as may be seen from the Etruscan manner and still more from the letters carved on a paw about which since they are but few and there is no one now who understands the Etruscan tongue it is conjectured that they may represent the name of the master himself and perchance also the date according to the use of those times this figure by reason of its beauty and antiquity has been placed in our day by the lord Duke Cosimo in the hall of the new rooms in his palace wherein there have been painted by me the acts of Pope Leo X and besides this they were found in the same place many small figures in bronze after the same manner which are in the hands of the said lord Duke but since the dates of the works of the Greeks the Ethiopians and the Chaldeans are as doubtful as our own and perhaps more and by reason of the greater need of founding our judgment about these works on conjectures which however are not so feeble that they are in every way wide of the mark I believe that I strayed not at all from the truth and I think that everyone who will consent to consider this question discreetly will judge as I did when I said above that the origin of these arts was nature herself and the exemplar model the most beautiful fabric of the world and the master that divine light infused by special grace into us which has not only made us superior to the other animals but if it be not sin to say it like to God and if in our own times it has been seen as I trust to be able to demonstrate a little later by many examples that simple children roughly reared in the woods with their only model in the beautiful pictures and sculptures of nature and by the vivacity of their wit have begun by themselves to make designs how much more may we nay, must we confidently believe that these primitive men who in proportion as they were in their origin and divine creation were thereby the more perfect and of better intelligence that they by themselves having for guide nature, for master purest intellect and for example the so lovely model of the world gave birth to these most noble arts and from a small beginning little by little bettering them brought them at last to perfection I do not indeed wish to deny that there was one among them who was the first to begin seeing that I know very well that it must needs be that at some time and from some one man there came the beginning nor also will I deny that it may have been possible that one helped another and taught and opened the way to design, to color and relief because I know that our art it's all imitation of nature for the most part and then because a man cannot by himself rise so high of those works that are executed by those whom he judges to be better masters than himself but I say surely that the wishing to affirm dogmatically who this man or these men were is a thing very perilous to judge and perchance little necessary to know provided that we see the true root and origin where from art was born for since of the works that are the life and the glory of the craftsmen the first and step by step the second and the third were lost by reason of time that consumes all things and since for lack of writers at that time they could not at least in that way become known to posterity their craftsmen as well came to be forgotten but when once the writers began a record of things that were before their day they could not speak of those whereof they had not been able to have information in the manner that there came to be first with them those of whom the memory had been the last to be lost even as the first of the poets by common consent is said to be Homer not because there were none before him for there were although not so excellent which is seen clearly from his own works but because of these early poets in whatever manner of men they were all knowledge had been lost quite 2,000 years before however leaving behind us this part as too uncertain by reason of its antiquity let us come to the clearer matters of their perfection ruin and restoration or rather resurrection whereof we will be able to discourse on much better grounds I say then it being true indeed that they began late in Rome because as is said the image of Ceres made of metal from the treasure of Spirius Cassius who for conspiring to make himself king was put to death by his own father without any scruple and that although the art of sculpture and of painting continued up to the end of the 12 Caesars they did not however continue in that perfection and excellence which they had enjoyed before for it may be seen from the edifices the emperors built in succession one after the other that these arts decaying from one day to another were coming little by little to lose their whole perfection of design and to this clear testimony is born by the works of sculpture and of architecture that were wrought in the time of Constantine in Rome and in particular the triumphal arc raised for him by the Roman people near the Colossium wherein it is seen that they were full of good masters they not only made use of marble groups made at the time of Trajan but also of the spoils brought from various places to Rome and whosoever knows that the votive offerings in the medallions that is the sculptures in half relief and likewise the prisoners and the large groups and the columns and the moldings and the other ornaments whether made before or from spoils are excellently brought knows also that the works made to fill up by the sculptures of that time are of the rudest and also are certain small groups with little figures in marble below the medallions and the lowest bays wherein there are certain victories and certain rivers between the arches at the sides which are very rude and so made that it can be believed most surely that by that time the art of sculpture had begun to lose something of the good and there had not yet come the goffs and the other barbarous and outlandish peoples who destroyed together with Italy all the finer arts it is true indeed that in the sad times architecture had suffered less harm than the other arts of design had suffered for in the bath that Constantine erected on the letter in the entrance of the principal porch it may be seen to say nothing of the porphyry columns the capitals wrought in marble and the double bases taken from some other place and very well carved that the whole composition of the building is very well conceived whereas on the contrary the stucco, the mosaics and certain incrustations on the walls made by masters of that time are not equal to those that he caused to be placed in the same bath which were taken, for the most part from the temples of the hidden gods Constantine, so it is said did the same in the garden of Equitius in making the temple which he afterwards endowed and gave to the Christian priests in light manner the magnificent church of San Giovanni Laterano erected by the same emperor can bear witness to the same namely that in his day sculpture had already greatly declined for the image of the savior and the twelve apostles in silver that he caused to be made were very debased sculptures wrought without art and with very little design besides this whosoever examines with diligence the metals of Constantine and his image and other statues made by the sculptures of that time which are at the present day in the Campidoglio may see clearly that they are very far removed from the perfection of the metals and statues of the other emperors and all this shows that long before the coming of the gods into Italy sculpture had greatly declined architecture as has been said continued to maintain itself if not so perfect in a better state nor is there reason to marvel at this seeing that as the great edifices were made almost wholly of spoils it was easy for the architects making the new to imitate in great measure the old which they had ever before their eyes and that much more easily than the sculptures could imitate the good figures of the ancients their art having wholly vanished and that this is true is manifest because the church of the Prince of the Apostles on the Vatican was not rich save in columns, bases, capitals architraves, moldings, doors and other incrustations and ornaments which were all taken from various places and from the edifices built most magnificently in earlier times the same could be said of San Croce in Jerusalem which Constantine erected at the entreaty of his mother Helena of San Lorenzo without the walls of Rome and of San Agnesa built by him at the request of Constantia, his daughter and who does not know that the fond which served for the baptism of both her and her sister was all adorned with works wrought long before and in particular with the porphyry carved with most beautiful figures with certain marble candlesticks excellently carved with foliage and with some boys in low relief that are truly most beautiful in short, for these and many other reasons it is clear how much in the time of Constantine sculpture had already declined and together with it the other fine arts and if anything was wanting to complete this ruin it was supplied to them umply by the departure of Constantine Rome on his going to establish the seat of the empire at Byzantium for the reason that he took with him not only all the best sculptures and other craftsmen of that age whatsoever manner of men they were but also an infinite number of statues and other works of sculpture all most beautiful after the departure of Constantine the Caesar's whom he left in Italy building continually both in Rome and elsewhere exerted themselves to make their works as fine as they could but as may be seen sculpture as well as painting and architecture went ever from bad to worse and this perchance came to pass because when human affairs begin to decline they never cease to go ever lower and lower until such time as they can grow no worse so too it may be seen that although at the time of Pope Liberius the architects of that day strove to do something great in constructing the church of Santa Maria Maggiore they were yet not happy in the success of the whole for the reason that although that building which is likewise composed for the greater part of spoils was made with good enough proportions it cannot be denied any the less not to speak of certain other parts that the frieze made right round above the columns with ornaments in stucco and painting is wholly wanting in design and that many other things which are seen in that great church demonstrate the imperfection of the arts many years after when the Christians were persecuted under Julian the Apostle there was erected on the Sicilian Mount a church to Saint John and Saint Paul the martyrs in a manner so much worse than those named above that it is seen clearly that the church was, at that time little less than wholly lost the buildings too that were erected at the same time in Tuscany bear most ample testimony to this and not to speak of many others the church that was built outside the walls of Arezzo to San Donatus Bishop of that city who together with the monk Hilarion suffered martyrdom under the said Julie and the Apostle was in no way better in architecture than those named above nor can it be believed that this came from anything else but the absence of better architects in that age seeing that the said church as it has been possible to see in our own day which is octagonal and constructed from the spoils of the theater the Colossium and other edifices that had been standing in Arezzo before it was converted to the faith of Christ was built without thought of economy and at the greatest cost the columns of granite of porphyry and of many colored marbles which had belonged to the said buildings and for myself I do not doubt from the expense which was clearly bestowed on that church that if the Eretins had had better architects they would have built something marvelous for it may be seen from what they did that they spared nothing if only they might make that work as rich and as well-designed as they possibly could and since as has been already said so many times architecture had lost less of its perfection than the other arts there was to be seen therein some little of the good at this time likewise was enlarged the church of Santa Maria in Grado in honor of the said Hilarion for the reason that he had been for a long time living in it when he went with Donatus to the crown of martyrdom but because fortune when she has brought men to the height of her wheel as one either in jest or in repentance to throw them down again it came about after these things that there rose up in various parts of the world all the barbarous peoples against Rome whence there ensued after no long time not only the humiliation of so great an empire but the ruin of the whole and above all of Rome herself and with her were likewise utterly ruined the most excellent craftsmen sculptures, painters and architects leaving the arts and their own selves buried and submerged among the miserable massacres and ruins of that most famous city and the first to fall into decay were painting and sculpture as being arts that served more for pleasure than for use while the other namely architecture as being necessary and useful for bodily wheel continued to exist but no longer in its perfection and excellence and if it had not been that the sculptures and pictures presented to the eyes of those who were born from day to day those who had been thereby honored to the end that they might have eternal life there would soon have been lost the memory of both whereas some of them survived in the images and inscriptions placed in private houses as well as in treasuries finally in the very tombs whereof a great part was destroyed by a barbarous and savage race who had nothing in them of men but the shape and the name these among others were the Visigoths who having created Elaric their king assailed Italy and Rome and sacked the city twice without respect for anything whatsoever the same two did the Vandals having come from Africa and the Vassalic and the Vassalic who, not content with his booty and prey and all the cruelties that he brought there carried away her people into slavery to their exceeding great misery and among them Eudoxia once the wife of the emperor valentinean who had been slaughtered no long time before by his own soldiers for these having fallen away in very great measure gone a long time before to Byzantium with the Emperor Constantine, had no longer any good customs or ways of life. Nay more, they had been lost at one and the same time, all true men, and every sort of virtue and laws, habits, names, and tongues had been changed, and all these things together and each by itself had caused every lovely mind and lofty intellect to become most brutish and most base. But what brought infinite harm and damage on the sad professions, even more than all the aforesaid causes, was the burning zeal of the new Christian religion, which, after a long and bloody combat with its wealth of miracles and with the sincerity of its works, had finally cast down and swept away the old faith of the heathens, and devoting itself most ardently with all diligence to driving out and extirpating root and branch every least occasion once error could arise, not only defaced or threw to the ground all the marvelous statues, sculptures, pictures, mosaics, and ornament of the false gods of the heathens, but even the memorials and the honors of the numberless men of Mark, to whom, for their excellent merits, the noble spirit of the ancients had set up statues and other memorials in public places. Nay, more, it not only destroyed, in order to build the churches for the Christian use, the most honored temples of the idols, but in order to ennoble and adorn San Pietro, to say nothing of the ornaments which had been there from the beginning, it also robbed of its stone columns the mausoleum of Hadrian, now called the Castello di Sant'Angelo, and many other buildings that today we see in ruins. And although the Christian religion did not do this by reason of hatred that it bore to the arts, but only in order to humiliate and cast down the gods of the heathens, it was nonetheless true that from this most ardent zeal there came so great ruin on these honored professions that their very form was wholly lost. And as if odd were wanting to this grievance misfortune, there arose against Rome the wrath of Totilla, who, besides raising her walls and destroying with fire and sword all her most wonderful and noble buildings, burned the whole city from end to end, and having robbed her of every living body, left her a prey to flames and fire, so that there was not found in her in eighteen successive days a single living soul, and he cast down and destroyed so completely the marvelous statues, pictures, mosaics and works in Stucco, that there was lost, I do not say only their majesty, but their very form and essence. Wherefore, it being the lower rooms chiefly of the palaces and other buildings that were robbed with Stucco, with painting and with statuary, there was buried by the ruins from above all that good work that has been discovered in our own day, and those who came after, judging the whole to be in ruins, planted vines there on, in a manner that, since the said lower rooms remained under the ground, the modders have called them grotos and grotesque the pictures that are there in scene at the present day. After the end of the Ostrogoths, who were destroyed by Narcissus, men were living among the ruins of Rome in some fashion, poorly indeed, when there came, after a hundred years, Constantine II, emperor of Constantinople, who, although received lovingly by the Romans, laid waste, robbed and carried away all that had remained, more by chance than by the good will of those who had destroyed her in the miserable city of Rome. It is true indeed that he was not able to enjoy this booty, because, being carried by a sea tempest to Sicily and being justly slain by his own men, he left his spoils, his kingdom and his life, a prey to fortune. But she, not yet content with the woes of Rome, to the end that the things stolen might never return, brought thither, for the ruin of the island, a host of Saracens, who carried off both the wealth of the Sicilians and the spoils of Rome to Alexandria, to the very great shame and loss of Italy and of Christendom. And so all that the Pontiffs had not destroyed, and above all St. Gregory, who is said to have decreed banishment against all the remainder of the statues and of the spoils of the buildings, came finally at the hands of that most rascally Greek to an evil end. In the manner that there being no trace were signed to be found of anything that was, in any way good, the men who came after, although rude and boorish, and in particular in their pictures and sculptures, yet incited by nature and refined by the air, set themselves to work, not according to the rules of the aforesaid arts which they did not know, but according to the quality of their own intelligence. The arts of design, then, having been brought to these limits both before and during the lordship of the Lombards over Italy, and also afterwards, continued gradually to grow worse, although some little work was done, and so much that nothing could have been more rudely wrought or with less design than what was done, as bear witness, besides many other works, certain figures that are in the portico of San Pietro in Rome above the doors wrought in the Greek manner in memory of certain holy fathers who had made disputation for holy church in certain councils. To this likewise bear witness many works in the same manner that are to be seen in the city and in the whole extricate of Ravenna, and in particular some that are in Santa Maria Rotonda without that city, made a little time after the Lombards had been driven out of Italy. In this church, as I will not forbid to say, there may be seen a thing most notable and marvelous, namely the vault, or rather cupola, that covers it, which, although it is ten braccia wide and serves for roof and covering to that building, is nevertheless of one single piece, so great and ponderous, that it seems almost impossible that such a stone, weighing more than two hundred thousand pounds, could have been set into place so high. But to return to our subject, there issued from the hands of the masters of those times those puppet-like and uncow figures that are still to be seen in the works of old. The same thing happened to architecture, seeing that, since it was necessary to build, and since form and the good method were completely lost by reason of the death of the craftsmen and the destruction and ruin of their works, those who apply themselves to this exercise built nothing that either in ordering or in proportion showed any grace or design or reason whatsoever. Wherefore, there came to arise new architects, who brought from their barbarous races the method of that manner of buildings that are called by us today German. And they made some that are rather a source of laughter for us moderns than creditable to them, until better craftsmen afterwards found a better style, and some measures similar to the good style of the ancients, even as that manner may be seen throughout all Italy in the old churches, but not the ancient, which were built by them, such as a palace of theodoric king of Italy in Ravenna, and one in Pavia and another in Modena, all in a barbarous manner, and rather rich and vast than well conceived or of good architecture. The same may be affirmed of San Stefano in Rimi, of San Martino in Ravenna, and of the Church of San Giovanni Evangelista, erected in the same city by Gala Placidia, about the year of our salvation for hundred thirty-eight, of San Vitale, which was erected in the year five hundred forty-seven, of the Abbey of Clasidifuori, and in short of many other monasteries and churches erected after the Lombard rule. All these buildings, as has been said, are both large and magnificent, but of the rudest architecture, and among them are many abbeys and friends erected to St. Benedict, the Church and Monastery of Monte Cassino, and the Church of San Giovanni Battista at Monza, built by the Theodolinda, Queen of the Goths, to whom St. Gregory the Pope wrote his dialogues, in which place that queen caused to be painted the story of the Lombards, wherein it was seen that they shaved the back of their heads, and in front they had long locks, and they dyed themselves as far as the chin. Their garments were of ample linen, as was the use of the angles and sexes, and below a mantle of diverse colors. Their shoes opened as far as the toes, and tied above with certain straps of leather. Similar to the aforesaid churches were the Church of San Giovanni in Pavia, erected by Gondiberta, daughter of the aforesaid Theodolinda, and in the same city the Church of San Salvatore, built by the brother of the said queen, Eribert, who succeeded to the throne of Rotoald, husband of Gondiberta, and the Church of Santo Ambrogio in Pavia, erected by Grimold, king of the Lombards, who drove Bertrit, son of Eribert, from his throne. This Bertrit, being restored to his throne after the death of Grimold, erected also in Pavia a monastery for nuns, called the Monasterio Nuovo, in honor of Our Lady and of Sant'Agatha, and the queen erected one without the walls, dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Perdica. Cuniburg, likewise, son of that Bertrit, erected a monastery and church after the same manner to San Giorgio, called Di Coronate, on the spot where he had gained a great victory over Allahi. Not unlike to these two was the church that the king of the Lombards, Lutron, who lived in the time of King Pepin, father of Charlemagne, built in Pavia, which is called San Pietro in Celdauro, nor that Juan likewise, that Desiderius built, who reigned after Estov, namely San Pietro Clivate, in the diocese of Milan, nor the monastery of San Vincenzo in Milan, nor that of Santa Giulia in Brescia, seeing that they were all built at the greatest cost, but in the most ugly and haphazard manner. Later, in Florence, architecture made some little progress, and the Church of Santa Apostolo, that was erected by Charlemagne, although small, was most beautiful in manner. For not to mention that the shafts of the columns, although they are of separate pieces, show much grace and are made with beautiful proportion, the capitals also, and the arches, turn to make little vaulted roofs of the two small aisles, show that in Tuscany there had survived, or in truth arisen, some good craftsmen. In short, the architecture of this Church is such, that Filippo di Ser Brunellesco did not disdain to avail himself of it as a model in building the Church of Santo Spirito, and that of San Lorenzo in the same city. The same may be seen in the Church of San Marco in Venice, which, to say nothing of San Giorgio Maggiore erected by Giovanni Morozini in the year 978, was begun under the doge Giustiniano, and Giovanni Paraticiaco, close by San Teodosio, when the body of that evangelist was sent from Alexandria to Venice. And after many fires which greatly damaged the doge's palace and the Church, it was finally rebuilt on the same foundations in the Greek manner and in that style wherein it is seen today, at very great cost, and under the direction of many architects, in the year of Christ 973, at the time of doge Domenico Selvo, who had the columns brought from where so ever he could find them, and so it continued to go on, up to the year 1104, when the doge was Messer Piero Polanni, and, as has been said, with the design of many masters, all Greek. In the same Greek manner, and about the same time, where the seven abbeys that count Ugo, the Marquis of Brandenburg, caused to be built in Tuscany, as can be seen in the badia of Florence, in that of Settimo, and in the others, which buildings, with the remains of those that are no longer standing, bear testimony that architecture was still in the measure, holding its ground, although greatly corrupted, and far removed from the good manner of the ancients. To this can also bear witness many old palaces built in Florence after the ruin of Fiesoli, in Tuscan workmanship, but with barbaric ordering in the proportions of those doors and windows of immense length, in the curves of the pointed quarter-segments, and in the turning of the arches after the want of the foreign architects of those times. The year afterwards, 1013, it is clear that the art had regained some of its vigor from the rebuilding of that most beautiful church, San Miniatto in Sul Monte, in the time of master Ali Brando, citizen and bishop of Florence. For the reason that, besides the marble ornaments that are seen therein, both within and without, it may be seen from the façade that the Tuscan architects strove as much as they could in the doors, the windows, the columns, the arches, and the moldings, to imitate the good order of the ancients, having in part recovered it from the most ancient temple of San Giovanni in their city. At the same time, painting, which was little less than wholly spent, may be seen to have begun to win back something, as the mosaic shows that was made in the principal chapel of the sad church of San Miniatto. From such beginnings, then, these arts commenced to grow better in design throughout Tuscani, as is seen in the year 1016, from the commencement made by the people of Pisa for the building of their Duomo, seeing that in those times it was a great thing for men to put their hands to the construction of a church made, as this was, with five naves, and almost wholly of marble, both within and without. This church, which was built under the direction and design of Buschetto, a Greek of Delicium, an architect of rarest worth for those times, was erected and adorned by the people of Pisa, with innumerable spoils brought by sea, for they were at the height of their greatness, from diverse, most distant places, as is well shown by the columns, bases, capitals, cornices, and all the other kinds of stonework that are therein seen. And seeing that these things were some of them small, some large, and some of a middle size, great was the judgment and the talent of Buschetto in accommodating them and in making the distribution of all this building, which is very well arranged, both within and without. And besides other work, he contrived the frontal slope of the façade very ingeniously, with a great number of columns, adorning it besides with columns carved in diverse and varied ways, and with ancient statues, even as he also made the principal doors in the same façade, between which, that is, beside that of the Carroccio, there was afterwards given an honourable burial-place to Buschetto himself, with three epitaphs, whereof this is one in Latin verses, in no way dissimilar to others of those times. And seeing that there has been made mention above of the Church of St. Apostle in Florence, I will not forbear to say that on a marble slather again, on one side of the high altar, there may be seen these words. The aforesaid edifice of the Duomo in Pisa, awaking the minds of many to fair enterprises throughout all Italy, and above all in Tuscany, was the cause that, in the city of Pistoia, in the year 1032, a beginning was made for the Church of St. Paolo, in the presence of the Blessed Atto, bishop of that city, as may be read in a verse of the Church of St. Paul, in the presence of the Blessed Atto, bishop of that city, as may be read in a contract made at that time, and, in short, for many other buildings, whereof it would take too long to mention at present. I cannot forbear to say, however, following the course of time, that afterwards, in the year 1060, there was erected in Pisa the Round Church of San Giovanni opposite the Duomo, and in the same square. And something marvellous and almost wholly incredible is to be found recorded in an old book of the works of the said Duomo, namely, that the columns of the said San Giovanni, the pillars, and the vaulting, were raised and completed in 15 days and no more. In the same book, which anyone can see who has the wish, it may be read that for the building of this Church there was imposed a tax of one denial for each fire, but it is not said therein whether of gold or of small coin. And at that time there were in Pisa, as may be seen in the same book, 34,000 fires. Truly this work was vast, of great cost and difficult to execute, and above all the vaulting of the tribune, made in the shape of a pair and covered without with lead. The outer side is full of columns, carvings, and groups, and on the frieze of the central door is a Jesus Christ with the twelve apostles in half relief, after the Greek manner. The people of Lucca, about the same time, that is in the year 1061, as rivals of the people of Pisa, became the Church of San Martino in Lucca, from the design of certain disciples of Buschetto, there being then no other architects in Tuscany. Attached to the facade of this Church, there may be seen a marble portico, with many ornaments and carvings made in memory of Pope Alexander II, who had been, a short time before he was elected to the pontificate, Bishop of that city. Of this construction and of Alexander himself, everything is fully told in nine Latin verses, and the same may be seen in certain other ancient letters engraved on the marble under the portico between the doors. On the set facade are certain figures, and under the portico many scenes in marble from the life of Saint Martin, in half-relief and in the Greek manner. But the best, which are over one of the doors, were made 170 years after by Nicola Pisano, and finished in 1233, as will be told in the proper place. The wardens, when these were begun, being Abelenato and Aliprando, as it may be clearly seen from certain letters carved in marble in the proper place. These figures, by the hand of Nicola Pisano, show how much improvement there came from him to the art of sculpture. Similar to these were most, nay, all of the buildings that were erected in Italy from the times of Forset up to the year 1250, seeing that little or no acquisition or improvement can be seen to have been made in the space of so many years by architecture, which stayed in the same limits and went on ever in that rude manner, whereof many examples are still to be seen, of which I will at present make no mention, for the reason that they will be spoken of below, according to the occasions that may come before me. In like manner, the good sculptures and pictures, which had been buried under the ruins of Italy, remained up to the same time hidden from or not known to the men hourishly reared in the rudeness of the modern use of that age, wherein no other sculptures or pictures existed than those which a remnant of old Greeks were making, either in images of clay or stone or painting monstrous figures and covering only the bare linments with collar. These craftsmen, as the best, being the only ones in these professions, were summoned to Italy, whither they brought sculpture and painting together with mosaic in that style wherein they knew them, and even so they taught them rudely and roughly to the Italians, who afterwards made use of them, as has been told and will be told further, up to a certain time. And the men of those times not being used to see other excellence or greater perfection in any work than that which they themselves saw marveled and took these for the best, for all that they were vile, until the spirits of the generation then arising helped in some places by the subtlety of the air became so greatly purged that about twelve-fifty heaven moved to pity for the lovely mines that the Tuscan soil was producing every day restored them to their first condition. And although those before them had seen remains of arches, of colossi, of statues, of urns, and of storied columns in the ages that came after the sackings, the destructions and the burnings of Rome, and never knew how to make use of them or draw from them any benefit, up to the time mentioned above, the mines that came after discerning well enough the good from the bad and abandoning the old manners turned to imitating the ancient with all their industry and wit. But in order that it may be understood more clearly what I call old and what ancient, the ancient were the works made before Constantine in Corinth, in Athens, in Rome, and in other very famous cities, until the time of Nero, the Vespasians, Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus, whereas those others are called old that were executed from Saint Sylvester's day up to that time by a certain remnant of Greeks who knew rather how to die than how to paint. For since the excellent early craftsmen had been killed in these wars, as has been said, to the remainder of these Greeks, old but not ancient, there had been left nothing but elementary outlines on a ground of color. And to this, at the present day, witness is born by an infinity of mosaics which wrought throughout all Italy by these Greeks are to be seen in every old church in any city whatsoever of Italy, and above all in the Duomo of Pisa, in San Marco, at Venice, and in other places as well. And so, too, they kept making many pictures in that manner with eyes staring, hands outstretched, and standing on tiptoe as may still be seen in San Miniatto without Florence between the door that leads into the sacristy and that which leads into the convent, and in Santo Spirito in the said city the whole side of the cloister opposite the church. And in like manner at Arezzo, in San Giuliano, and in San Bartolomeo, and in other churches, and in Rome, in the old church of San Chietro, scenes right round between the windows, works that have more of the monsters in their linements than of likeness to whatsoever they represent. Of sculptures likewise, they made an infinity as may still be seen in low relief over the door of San Michele in the Piazza Padella of Florence, and in Onnisanti, and tombs and adornments in many places for the doors of churches wherein they have certain figures for corbels to support the roof, so rude and vile, so mis-happened, and of such a grossness of manner that it appears impossible that worse could be imagined. Thus far have I thought fit to discourse from the beginning of sculpture and of painting, and per adventure at greater length that was necessary in this place, which I have done, indeed, not so much carried away by my affection for art, as urged by the common benefit and advantage of our craftsmen. For, having seen in what way she, from a small beginning, climbed to the greatest height, in how, from a state so noble, she fell into utter ruin, and that, in consequence, the nature of this art is similar to that of the others which, like human bodies, have their birth, their growth, their growing old, and their death, they will now be able to recognize more easily the progress of her second birth, and of that very perfection where to she has risen again in our times. And I hope more over that if ever, which God forbid, it should happen at any time, through the negligence of men, or through the malice of time, or finally, through the decree of heaven, which appears to be unwilling that the things of this earth should exist for long in one form, that she falls again into the same chaos of ruin, that these my labors, whatsoever they may be worth, if indeed they may be worthy of a happier fortune, both through what has been already said, and through what remains to say, may be able to keep her alive, or at least to encourage the most exalted minds to provide them with better assistance, so much so that what with my goodwill and the works of these masters, she may abound in those aids and adornments we're in, if I may freely speak the truth, she has been wanting up to the present day. But it is now time to come to the life of Giovanni Cimambue, and even as he gave the first beginning to the new method of drawing and painting, so it is just an expedient that he should give it to the lives in which I will do my utmost to preserve the most that I can the order of their manners rather than that of time. And in describing the forms and features of the craftsmen, I will be brief, seeing that their portraits, which have been collected by me with no less cost and fatigue than diligence, will show better what sort of men the craftsmen themselves were in appearance than describing them could ever do. And if the portrait of any one of them should be wanting, that is through my fault, but by reason of it being nowhere found. And if the sad portraits were not per-adventure to appear to someone to be absolutely like to others that might be found, I wish it to be remembered that the portrait made of a man when he was 18 or 20 years old will never be like to the portrait that may have been made 15 or 20 years later. To this it must be added that portraits in drawing are never so like as are those in collars. Not to mention that the engravers who have no draughtsmanship always rob the faces, being unable or not knowing how to make exactly those minutenesses that make them good and true to life. Of that perfection which is rarely or never found in portraits cut in wood, in short, how great have been therein my labor, expense and diligence, will be evident to those who, in reading, will see whence I have to the best of my ability unearth them. End of section 3