say more, thinking that when the time came he should, as usual, behold some miracle. It chanced that Donato was in the Mercato Vecchio buying fruit one morning, when he saw Paolo Uccello, who was uncovering his picture.[1] Saluting him courteously, therefore, his opinion was instantly demanded by Paolo, who was anxiously curious to know what he would say of the work. But when Donato had examined the painting very minutely, he turned to Paolo and said, “Why, Paolo! thou art uncovering thy picture just at the very time when thou shouldst be shutting it up from the sight of all!” These words so grievously afflicted the painter, that perceiving himself likely to incur derision instead of the glory that he had hoped for from this, his last labour, and not having the courage to show himself fallen, as he felt himself to be, he would no more leave his house, but shut himself up, devoting himself wholly to the study of perspective, which kept him in poverty and depression to the day of his death. He lived to become very old, but had secured little enjoyment for his old age, and died in the year 1432,[2]in his eighty-third year, when he was buried in the church of Santa Maria Novella.[3]
Paolo Uccello left a daughter, who had some ability in design, and a wife, who was wont to relate that Paolo would stand the whole night through, beside his writing-table, seeking new terms for the expression of his rules in perspective; and when entreated by herself to take rest and sleep, he would reply, “Oh, what a delightful thing is this perspective!”[4] And it is doubtless true, that as this study was delightful
- ↑ This painting of St. Thomas has disappeared.
- ↑ This is most probably an error of the press, and should be 1472 according to some of the authorities, according to others, 1497. See Gaye, Carteggio inedito, etc. i, 146-7.
- ↑ “On the death of this master,” says Vasari, in his first edition, “many
epigrams (sic), both in the Latin and vulgar tongue, were made for him,
but it shall suffice me to recite the following:—”
Zeusi et Parrasio ceda et Polignoto
Ch’ io fei l’arte una tacita natura,
Diei affetto et forza ad ogni mia figura,
Volo agli uccelli, a’ pesci il Corso e’l noto. - ↑ Let us then hope that this good labourer had not so dark a close to his life as Vasari would have us believe. Surely that “delightful thing,” his beloved perspective, must have thrown some light over the gloom which Vasari describes. — Trans.
