Giorgio Vasari

“ No trace, no vestige of excellence in art, now remained ; the men who followed immediately on these unhappy times, proceeded in a rude and uncultivated manner in all things, but more especially in painting and sculpture ; yet, impelled by nature, and refined, to a certain degree, by the air they breathed, they set themselves to work, not according to the rules of art, which they no longer possessed, but each according to the quality of his own talent. ”

“ It is true that those who lived in the times succeeding the ruin of Rome, had seen remnants of arches, colossi, statues, pillars, storied columns, and other works of art, not wholly destroyed by the fires and other devastations ; yet they had not known how to avail themselves of this aid, nor had they derived any benefit from it, until the time specified above. When the minds then awakened, becoming capable of distinguishing the good from the worthless, and abandoning old methods, returned to the imitation of the antique, with all the force of their genius, and all the power of their industry. ”

“ Giotto certainly did obscure his fame, as a great light diminishes the splendour of a lesser one ; so that, although Cimabue may be considered, perhaps, the first cause of the restoration of the art of painting, yet Giotto, his disciple, impelled by laudable ambition, and well aided by heaven and nature, was the man who, attaining to superior elevation of thought, threw open the gates of the true way to those who afterwards exalted the art to that perfection and greatness which it displays in our age ”

“ And perhaps this consideration also may increase our desire to labour truly ; for, seeing the nobility and greatness of our art, and how, by all nations, but especially by the most exalted minds, and the most potent rulers, it has ever been honoured and rewarded, we may all be the more influenced and impelled to adorn the world with works, infinite as to number and surpassing in their excellence,— whence, embellished by our labours, it may place us on that eminence which it has maintained those ever admirable and most celebrated spirits. ”

“ This youth was one of admirable ability, he worked with the utmost boldness, and was never weary of his labours; continually imitating the manner of Ridolfo, Michele approached him so closely, that whereas he had for a time only a third of the gains, he subsequently received the half of the profit which they made in common. Michele paid to Ridolfo the observance due to a father, nay, he loved and was beloved by his master to such a degree, that he was ever considered as something belonging to Ridolfo, and is still, as he ever has been, known by no other name than that of Michele di Ridolfo. ”

“ Nor have any labour, cost, or pains appeared to me too great for the better restoration of the memory of those whom I so greatly honour, or for the discovering of their portraits, and the procuring them, to place before their lives. And, for the more perfect satisfaction of many friends, devoted lovers of art, though not within our ranks, I have brought into a compendious form the greater part of the works of those artists who are still living, but whose talents render them worthy to be held in constant remembrance ”

“ These artists—the best as being the only ones—were conducted into Italy, whither they carried sculpture and painting, as well as mosaic, in such manner as they were themselves acquainted with them : these they taught, in their own coarse and rude style, to the Italians, who practised them, after such fashion, as I have said, and will further relate, down to a certain period. The men of those times, unaccustomed to works of greater perfection than those thus set before their eyes, admired them accordingly, and, barbarous as they were, yet imitated them as the most excellent models. ”

“ And, for my own part, I make no doubt but that the people of Arezzo—to judge from the expense to which we see that they went for this church—would have produced something marvellous in that work, if they had been able to procure better architects ; for we perceive, by what they have done, that they spared nothing to render it as rich and in as good style as they possibly could make it ; and since architecture had lost less of its perfection than the other arts, as we have said more than once, there is exhibited a certain degree of beauty in this building. ”

“ The rise of art in Rome must have taken place at a late epoch, if it be true, as we find asserted, that among her first statues was the bronze figure of Ceres, formed from the spoils of Spurius Cassius, who was deliberately put to death by his own father, for having aspired to become king. And although the arts of sculpture and painting continued to be practised to the close of the reign of the twelve Caesars, yet they did not maintain themselves in that degree of excellence and perfection which they had previously displayed ”

“ Finally, having given his attention not only to painting but to military matters, Benedetto died in the fiftieth year of his age.
Now David, although he worked and designed not a little, did, nevertheless, not greatly surpass Benedetto, a circumstance that may have arisen from the fact that he was too wealthy and too much at his ease, and therefore did not keep his thoughts fixed with sufficient firmness on art, who is never to be found in her perfection but by him who zealously seeks her; being found, moreover, she will not be neglected without at once taking flight. ”

“ One day that the Signor Duke had gone out of Florence, Ridolfo caused himself to be carried in his chair to the palace, where he dined and remained the whole day, examining the whole of that building, which was so greatly altered and transmuted from what it had formerly been, that he scarcely knew it again. [30] In the evening when he departed, the old man said, “Now shall I die content, since I shall be able to carry to our artists who are in the other world intelligence to the effect that I have seen the dead revived, the deformed made beautiful, the old made young again.” ”

“ Architecture remained, as has been said, if not in its perfection, still in a much better state ; nor will this occasion surprise, for since almost all the more important edifices were erected from the spoils of earlier buildings, it was not difficult for the architects, in raising the new fabrics, to imitate the old, which they had always before their eyes ; and this they could do more easily than the sculptors, who, the art being wanting, were deprived of this advantage of imitating the noble works of the ancients. ”

“ After the departure of Constantine, the Caesars, whom he left in Italy, continued building in Rome and elsewhere, and did their best for the execution of such works as they constructed ; but, as we see, not only sculpture, but painting and architecture, fell constantly from bad to worse, and this, perhaps, because human affairs, when they begin to decline, never cease to sink, until they have reached the lowest depths of deterioration. ”

“ In the apsis of the church, beyond the choir, he painted certain passages from the history of the Virgin, in four compartments,—her death, when her soul is borne by Christ to Heaven upon a throne of clouds, —and her coronation, when he places the crown on her head in the midst of a choir of angels ; numerous saints, male and female, standing below ; works now nearly obliterated by time and dust. In the vaults of the roof, which are five, Cimabue depicted various historical scenes in like manner. ”

“ We find, then, that the art of sculpture was zealously cultivated by the Greeks, among whom many excellent artists appeared ; those great masters, the Athenian Phidias, with Praxiteles and Polycletus, were of the number, while Lysippus and Pyrgoteles, worked successfully in intaglio, and Pygmalion [5] produced admirable reliefs in ivory—nay, of him it was affirmed, that his prayers obtained life and soul for the statue of a virgin which he had formed. Painting was in like manner honoured, and those who practised it successfully were rewarded among the ancient Greeks and Romans ”

“ It was forbidden, by public decree, that slaves should exercise this art within the cities, and so much homage was paid by the nations to art and artists, that works of rare merit were sent to Rome and exhibited as something wonderful, among other trophies in the triumphal processions, while artists of extraordinary merit, if slaves, received their freedom, together with honours and rewards from the republics. ”

“ Most dear and excellent Brother Artists,—the delight, as well as the honour and profit that I have derived from labouring as I have best been able in these most noble arts, has ever been so great, that I have not only felt an ardent wish to exalt, to celebrate, and to honour them by every means in my power, but have also been ever most affectionately disposed towards all who take similar pleasure in them, or who have distinguished themselves more happily in the pursuit of them than I, perchance, have been able to do. ”

“ Again I present these Lives to you, therefore, most illustrious and most truly excellent My Lord Duke, with the addition of other noble and very famous artists, who, between the former period and the present, have passed from the miseries of this life to a better; as well as of some, who, though still in life amongst us, have so nobly laboured in their vocation, that they are most worthy to be had in eternal remembrance. ”

“ Cimabue, of Florence, a painter of the time of our author, knew more of the noble art than any other man; but he was so arrogant and proud withal, that if any one discovered a fault in his work, or if he perceived one himself (as will often happen to the artist, who fails from the defects in the material that he uses, or from insufficiency of the instrument with which he works) , he would instantly destroy that work, however costly it might be. Giotto, of that same city of Florence, was, and is, the most eminent of painters ”

“ Don Vincenzio Borghini, prior of the Innocents, a man not only illustrious for elevation of mind, for goodness, and for learning, but also a lover of, and so well versed in, all the nobler arts, that he has merited to be elected, as by our lord the Duke Cosmo he judiciously has been, to the office of ducal representative (vice-president) in our Academy of Design. ”

“ It is true, that we cannot with certainty declare what was accomplished in these arts and towards the imitation of so beautiful a model, by the men who lived before the deluge, although we are fully justified in believing that they produced works of every kind, both in sculpture and painting, since Belus, son of the proud Nimrod, about two hundred years after the deluge, caused the statue to be made, which, at a later period, gave birth to idolatry. ”

“ The seven abbeys which Count Ugo, Marquis of Brandenburg, caused to be erected in Tuscany, were built during the same period, and in the same Greek manner, as may be seen in the abbey of Florence, in that of Settimo, and the others. All these buildings, as well as the vestiges of those that are ruined, bear testimony to the fact, that architecture still maintained itself in life, though grievously degenerated and departing widely from the excellent manner of the antique. ”

“ The first model, therefore, from which the first image of man arose, was a mass of earth; and not without significance, since the Divine Architect of time and nature, Himself all-perfect, designed to instruct us by the imperfection of the material, in the true method of attaining perfection, by repeatedly diminishing and adding to; as the best sculptors and painters are wont to do, for by perpetually taking from or adding to their models they conduct their work, from its first imperfect sketch, to that finish of perfection which they desire to attain. ”

“ For these masters, caring little for the progress of art, had executed their works as we now see them, not in the excellent manner of the ancient Greeks, but in the rude modern style of their own day. Wherefore, though Cimabue imitated his Greek instructors, he very much improved the art, relieving it greatly from their uncouth manner, and doing honour to his country by the name that he acquired, and by the works which he performed. ”

“ The arts of design—being reduced to this state during and after the domination of the Lombards in Italy—continued to deteriorate in all that was attempted, so that nothing could be worse, or evince less knowledge of art, than the works of that period; and we have proof of this, among other things, in certain figures which are over the door of the portico of St. Peter’s, at Rome; they are in the Greek manner, and represent certain holy fathers who had disputed for the Christian Church before some of the councils. Many works, of a similar manner, might be adduced in support of this assertion ”

“ But, notwithstanding all the honours paid to the arts, we cannot yet affirm, with certainty, to whom they owe their origin; seeing that, as we have said before, they were found to exist among the Chaldeans from the earliest times, and that some ascribe their origin to the Ethiopians, while the Greeks attribute it to themselves. It might, perhaps, be not unreasonable to suppose that the arts existed, from times still more remote, among the Tuscans, as our Leon. ”

“ And accordingly, notwithstanding the architects of the time of Pope Liberius made great efforts to produce an important work in the erection of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, they did not succeed happily in all parts ; for although that church—which was also constructed for the most part of spoils—is of tolerably fair proportions, yet it cannot be denied that the ornaments in stucco and painting (to say nothing of other parts) placed around the building above the columns, betray extreme poverty of design ”

“ It is to the masters of those times that we owe the fantastic images and absurd figures still to be seen in many old works. And a similar inferiority is perceptible in architecture, for it was necessary to build ; but all good methods and correct forms being lost by the death of good artists and the destruction of their works, those who devoted themselves to that employment were in no condition to give either correct proportion or grace of any kind to their designs. ”