short time, and may perhaps also do service to the artists who labour under the direction of the master, yet if these last were the most able men to be found in the world, they can never have that regard and love to the works of the master which the master will feel towards them himself; nor, however well the cartoons may be designed, will they ever be imitated exactly and truly, as they might be by the hand of their author. Moreover, the latter, seeing his work go to ruin, is apt to become discouraged, and so let all take its chance, thus falling from bad to worse until the whole work is utterly spoiled: he who has a thirst for honourable distinction therefore, must execute his works with his own hand.[1] And this I can affirm from my own experience, for I had myself prepared the Cartoons for the Chancery in the palace of San Giorgio in Rome, and had executed them with the utmost care and study, but the work having to be completed within a very short period, one hundred days that is to say, I was compelled to entrust the colouring of the same to numerous painters, and by these the outlines and contours to which I had given so much attention, were departed from to such a degree that never have I suffered any one to lay hand on my works from that day to this. If, therefore, the master desire to secure his reputation and the duration of his labours, let him undertake fewer and execute all with his own hand; nay, this he must do, if he propose to obtain that honour and distinction to which the elevated genius constantly aspires.
But Perino, I repeat, beheld himself constrained, by the number of works committed to his care, to employ many assistants for his undertakings; he had more desire for gain than for honour, and thought he had been throwing his time
- ↑ Lanzi remarks that Raphael and Giulio Romano were so careful in their choice of assistants and in re-touching their works, that they do not merit the reproaches to which the avarice of Perino del Vaga caused him to lay himself open, as is manifest in numerous instances. The general truth of Vasari’s observation is nevertheless indisputable, and a remark made by one of the German critics of our author, to the effect that Vasari has maintained the contrary of what he here asserts in the life of Giulio Romano, is wholly without foundation. Vasari was then speaking of the effect of the practice in question on the disciple, and lauded it accordingly. He is now describing the injury received from it by the works of the master, when he reprehends the practice, as he is fully justified in doing.
