working at Candiana, where Don Clovio was one of the monks, and by whom it was afterwards brought to a degree of perfection which very few have attained, and no one has ever surpassed.
Now, I was myself well acquainted with some of the facts here related in respect to these noble and excellent artists of Verona, but I should not have been able to acquire all the information which I have here reproduced concerning them, if the great kindness and patient research of the reverend and most learned Fra Marco de’ Medici, himself a Veronese, and profoundly skilled in all the most noble arts and sciences, had not been brought to aid me, as were those of the excellent sculptor Danese Cataneo of Carrara, both my good and trusted friends, from whom I have received that complete and minute exposition of facts, which I have now written as I have best been able, for the use and convenience of all who may read these our Lives. And, in the preparation thereof, the kindness of my many friends, who have been and still are subjecting themselves to much pains for my sake and for the advantage of the world, their kindness, I say, has been of great advantage and a most essential aid to my labours.[1]
And this shall be the end of the lives of the above-named Veronese, of each of whom I have found it impossible to procure the portraits, the full notice here given not having reached my hands until I had nearly completed my book, and was within a very little of the close of the work.
- ↑ On this passage, Bottari has the following remark, which is perfectly
appropriate as well as just, the unfounded accusations of partiality brought
against our author by certain of his compatriots, each jealous for the
honour of his own town or favourite school, considered:—
“From this ingenuous confession of Vasari we perceive in what manner he has composed these lives, and that if he has sometimes spoken but sparingly of artists foreign to Tuscany, this circumstance has arisen from the fact that he was but scantily supplied with notices concerning them by those to whom, as being their townsmen, he had applied for information, and from whom he had good reason to expect all the minute intelligence that was to be given. Wherefore, it is altogether wrongfully that Vasari is accused of envy and partiality, when he has been compelled to write sparingly of artists who are not Tuscans, a remark which I have made before, but which I here repeat of set purpose.” —Roman Edition of Vasari, 1759.
