Giorgio Vasari

“ Having then returned to Rome, Giovanni executed in the loggia of Agostino Chigi, which Raffaello had painted and was still engaged in carrying to completion, a border of large festoons right round the groins and squares of the vaulting, making there all the kinds of fruits, flowers, and leaves, season by season, and fashioning them with such artistry, that everything may be seen there living and standing out from the wall, and as natural as the reality ”

“ Anna, the fourth sister, although but a little girl, is also giving her attention with much profit to design: so that I know not what to say save that it is necessary to have by nature an inclination for art, and then to add to that study and practice, as has been done by those four noble and gifted sisters, so much enamoured of every rare art, and in particular of the matters of design, insomuch that the house of Signor Amilcare Anguisciuola, most happy father of a fair and honourable family, appeared to me the home of painting, or rather, of all the arts. ”

“ That work, which was finished in the year 1538, he executed in fresco in such a manner, that it is worthy to be numbered among the most graceful and best conceived pictures that Francesco ever painted, in the invention, in the composition of the scene, in the method and the attention to rules for the gradation of the figures, in the perspective and the architecture of the buildings, in the nudes, in the draped figures, in the grace of the heads, and, in short, in every part; wherefore it is no marvel if all Rome was struck with astonishment by it. ”

“ And not long afterwards, in 1564, the good father himself, Fra Giovanni Agnolo, who had been so excellent a sculptor, was buried in the same tomb with most honourable obsequies, a very beautiful oration being delivered in his praise in the Temple of the Nunziata by the very reverend and most learned Maestro Michelagnolo. Truly great is the debt that our arts for many reasons owe to Fra Giovanni Agnolo, in that he bore infinite love to them and likewise to their craftsmen ”

“ To which having set his hand with all the study, diligence, and labour of which he was capable, Aristotile executed all those preparations to perfection. Now Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici, having himself written the piece that was to be performed, had charge of the whole representation and the music; and, being such a man that he was always thinking in what way he might be able to kill the Duke, by whom he was so much favoured and beloved, he thought to find a way of bringing him to his end in the preparations for the play. ”

“ That work is truly beautiful in architecture, well designed and distributed, and so well put together, that nothing better could be done; the pavement, also, wherein there is the tomb of Bovio on the level of the ground, is wrought in a beautifully ordered pattern; certain candelabra of marble, with some little figures and scenes, are passing well contrived; and every part is rich in carving. But the figures, besides that they are small, on account of the difficulty that is found in conveying large pieces of marble to Bologna, are not equal to the architecture, nor much worthy to be praised. ”

“ But, for all the diligence that he used there, he was surpassed by Bronzino, and by others who had less design than himself, in invention, in boldness, and in the treatment of the chiaroscuro. For, as has been said before, pictures must be executed with facility, and the parts set in their places with judgment, and without that effort and that labour which make things appear hard and crude; besides which, overmuch study often makes them come out heavy and dark, and spoils them, while lingering over them so long takes away the grace, boldness and excellence that facility is wont to give them. ”

“ One year, at the time of the Carnival, when Ruberto Strozzi was giving a banquet at Rome to certain lords, his friends, and a comedy was to be performed at his house, Aristotile made for him in the great hall a prospect-scene, which, considering the little space at his disposal, was so pleasing, so graceful, and so beautiful, that Cardinal Farnese, among others, not only was struck with astonishment at it, but caused him to make one in his Palace of S. Giorgio, where is the Cancelleria, in one of those mezzanine halls that look out on the garden ”

“ And for the nuptials, which took place on the 27th of June in the year 1539, Aristotile made in the great court of the Medici Palace, where the fountain is, another scenic setting that represented Pisa, in which he surpassed himself, ever improving and achieving variety; wherefore it will never be possible to put together a more varied arrangement of doors and windows, or façades of palaces more fantastic and bizarre, or streets and distant views that recede more beautifully and comply more perfectly with the rules of perspective. ”

“ Finally, Francesco being about to set out for Rome, Giorgio, as his friend, reminded him that, being rich, advanced in years, weak in health, and little fitted for more fatigues, he should think of living in peace and shun strife and contention, which he would have been able to do with ease, having acquired honour and property in plenty, if he had not been too avaricious and desirous of gain. ”

“ And all these particulars I heard from Girolamo da Carpi, who was much my friend, at Rome in the year 1550; and he lamented very often to me that he had consumed his youth and his best years in Ferrara and Bologna, and not in Rome or some other place, where, without a doubt, he would have made much greater proficience. No little harm, also, did Girolamo suffer in matters of art from his having given too much attention to amorous delights and to playing the lute at the time when he might have been making progress in painting. ”

“ And if you, Perino, had executed it, as you say, with more scenes and ornaments, perhaps you might not have done it with that grace which has been achieved by Aristotile, who in that kind of painting has been esteemed with much judgment by the Cardinal to be a better master than you. Remember that in the end, by giving a wrong and unjust estimate, you do harm not so much to Aristotile as to art and excellence in general, and even more to your own soul, if you depart from what is right for the sake of some private grievance ”

“ Old as he was, he felt a great love for the world of art, and insisted on being told of, and at times on seeing, those works that he heard much praised, such as buildings, pictures, and other suchlike things that were being executed every day; and one day that the Lord Duke was out of Florence, having had himself carried in his chair into the Palace, he dined there and stayed the whole day, gazing at that Palace, which was so changed and transformed from what it was before, that he did not recognize it ”

“ Not only do I enjoy the present, but I hope for even better things, for, besides seeing you in Rome, with whom, as the young friend nearest to my heart, I shall be able to study and discuss the matters of art, I also live in hope of entering the service of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, from whose liberality, as well as from the favour of the Pope, I may look for greater things than I have at present; and this will happen without a doubt if a certain young man, who is expected from abroad, does not arrive. ”

“ But, as it often happens that from the height of peace and tranquillity one falls into wars and discords, with the year 1527 all peace and gladness in Florence were changed into sorrow and distress, for by that time the Medici had been driven out, and then came the plague and the siege, and for many years life was anything but gay; wherefore no good could be done then by craftsmen, and Aristotile lived in those days always in his own house, attending to his studies and fantasies. ”

“ Whereupon Taddeo, having so honourable an appointment and the support of so great a lord, determined that he would give himself some peace of mind, and would no longer accept any mean work in Rome, as he had done up to that time; desiring, above all, to avoid the censure that many men of art laid upon him, saying that from a certain grasping avarice he would accept any kind of work, in order to gain with the arms of others that which would have been to many of them an honest means to enable them to study, as he himself had done in his early youth. ”

“ Wherever it may be, it is enough to depict a mountain, such an one as may be imagined where there is always darkness and never any sun; at the foot of it a deep hollow, through which water shall pass, as still as death, in order to signify that it makes no murmur, and this water must be of a sombre hue, because they make it a branch of Lethe. Within this hollow shall be a bed, which, being fabled to be of ebony, shall be black in colour and covered with black draperies. In this bed shall be placed Sleep, a young man of perfect beauty, for they make him surpassing beautiful and serene ”

“ The attitude of the Moon must be that of looking down from the heaven in the oval towards the horn of the façade that looks out over the garden, where you must place her lover Endymion, and she shall lean down from the car to kiss him, and, not being able by reason of the interposition of the border, she shall gaze lovingly upon him and illumine him with her radiance. For Endymion you must make a beautiful young shepherd, asleep at the foot of Mount Latmus. In the horn on the other side there shall be Pan, the God of Shepherds, who was enamoured of the Moon ”

“ For in those days the art of design in Florence had fallen into the hands of a company of persons who paid more attention to playing jokes and to enjoyment than to working, and whose occupation was to assemble in shops and other places, and there to spend their time in criticizing maliciously, in their own jargon, the works of others who were persons of excellence and lived decently and like men of honour. The heads of this company were Jacone, the goldsmith Piloto, and the wood-carver Tasso ”

“ Then, after having seen many things in Verona and in many other cities of Lombardy, he finally made his way to Florence, at the very time when festive preparations, rich and marvellous, were being made for the coming of Queen Joanna of Austria. Having arrived there, he executed, after the desire of the Lord Duke, a most beautiful and fanciful Hunt in colours on a vast canvas that covered the stage at the end of the Hall, and some scenes in chiaroscuro for an arch; all which gave infinite satisfaction. ”

“ And it does not seem to me right that he who sits in his work-room drawing cartoons, in order afterwards to reproduce in great works such a variety of things in perspective, should be paid for the labour of his nights—and perhaps for the work of many weeks into the bargain—on the same scale as are paid the days of those who have to undergo no fatigue of the mind and hand, and little of the body, it being enough for them to imitate, without in any way racking their brains, as Aristotile has done. ”

“ For Cardinal Riccio of Montepulciano he painted a most beautiful hall in his Palace in the Strada Giulia, where he executed in fresco various pictures with many stories of David; and, among others, one of Bathsheba bathing herself in a bath, with many other women, while David stands gazing at her, is a scene very well composed and full of grace, and as rich in invention as any other that there is to be seen. ”

“ Thus Giovan Francesco Rustici, a Florentine citizen, acquitting himself very well in drawing and working in clay in his boyhood, was placed by that Magnificent Lorenzo, who recognized him as a boy of spirit and of good and beautiful genius, to learn under Andrea del Verrocchio, with whom there was also working Leonardo da Vinci, a rare youth and gifted with infinite parts. ”

“ In which work, although Daniello was not the best painter in the world, nevertheless, on account of his age, and from his having seen the methods of Correggio and Parmigiano, and with what softness they executed their paintings, he had such experience that, imparting it to Taddeo and teaching him, he was of the greatest assistance to him with his words; no less, indeed, than another might have been by working before him. ”

“ Having thus disposed of the chamber as a whole, let us proceed to distribute the subjects, giving to each part its own. In the oval that is in the vaulting, you must paint at the head, as we have said, a figure of Aurora. This figure, I find, may be made in several ways, but of all these I shall choose that which in my opinion can be done with the greatest grace in painting. You must paint, then, a maiden of such beauty as the poets strive to express with words, composing her of roses, gold, purple, dew, and other suchlike graces; and so much for the colours and flesh-tints of her person. ”

“ But he used in this work the same methods as in all his others, for he made always the same figures, the same countenances, the same members, and the same draperies; besides which, the colouring was without any charm, and everything laboured and executed with difficulty. When all was finished, therefore, it gave little satisfaction to Duke Guidobaldo, Genga, and all the others who were expecting great things from that master, equal to the beautiful design that he had shown to them in the beginning; for, in truth, in making beautiful designs Battista had no peer and could be called an able man. ”

“ Indeed, he has surpassed even the limits of extravagance with the new and fanciful inventions and the strange vagaries of his intellect, working at haphazard and without design, as if to prove that art is but a jest. ”

“ As for the masters of our arts in Mantua, besides what has been said of them up to the time of Giulio Romano, I must say that he sowed the seeds of his art in Mantua and throughout all Lombardy in such a manner that there have been able men there ever since, and his own works are every day more clearly recognized as good and worthy of praise. ”