brought to an end by the Duke in fourteen months. These events collectively will be found partly on the ceiling and partly on the walls, which are eighty braccia long and twenty high; the frescoes I am still proceeding with, and of these I shall speak in the Dialogue before-mentioned. All this I say, for no other cause than the wish I have to show the earnest persistence with which I have laboured and do labour in these our arts; and with what just reasons I may excuse myself when I have in some places (and I am conscious these are many) fallen short in my works of what might and ought to have been effected.[1]
I may here add that, about this time I was charged with the care of designing and laying before his Excellency the various Arches of Triumph to be erected for the Nuptials, a great part of which I had likewise to construct. I was also commissioned to complete the remainder of the preparations so largely made in Florence for the Marriage of the illustrious Signor Prince; and had, moreover, to delineate in ten pictures, each fourteen braccia high and eleven wide, all the Piazzas of the principal cities in the Florentine dominions, with the most important edifices and distinctive characteristics of the same. Furthermore, I had to see that part of the Hall which had been commenced by Bandinelli brought to completion, and to make a scene for the opposite
- ↑ What can be more candid, upright, and creditable to the writer, whether as an artist or a man, than this dignified and most satisfactory exposition of his motives and proceedings? Consider also the character of the man, grateful and affectionate; his first impulse on receiving kindness was to do kindness, bat in double measure, in return. Highly favoured and liberally treated by the Duke, the first wish of our admirable master’s heart was to gratify Cosimo in his turn; to this wish he sacrificed his reputation, as well as his repose, consciously sacrificed it, dear as fame was to him, as is fully manifest. Compare this mode of proceeding with that of other artists of the period; paid for works "which no entreaty could prevail on them to complete; no sense of shame or higher motive could force them to fulfil their engagements: take the unprincipled and selfish Bandinelli, for example. Had Vasari been equally devoted to the interest, or supposed interest—for whose true interest can really consist in wrong doing?—of his own sole self, many proofs concur to convince us that his powers would have been proved equal on all points, as they are acknowledged to have been in many, to those of the greatest masters, Raphael and Michael Angelo alone perhaps excepted. All honour to the dear and upright Giorgio, therefore; and let us hope that his life of affectionate devotion had its rewards in a better kind of satisfaction than could have been derived by those more careful of their own interests and reputation, from the questionable proceedings whereby they but too frequently permitted themselves to seek their object.
