Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/49

 or rather within, the other. This picture (continues Pliny), was handed down, a wonder for posterity, but especially for artists; and, notwithstanding it contained only those three scarcely visible lines (tres lineas), still it was the most noble work in the Gallery, though surrounded by many finished paintings by renowned masters.

This celebrated contest of lines between Apelles and Protogenes, is a subject which has greatly perplexed painters and critics; and in fact, Carducci asserts that Michael Angelo and other great artists treated the idea with contempt. The picture was preserved in the gallery of the Imperial palace on the Palatine, and was destroyed by the first fire that consumed that palace, in the time of Augustus; therefore it could not have been seen by Pliny, and the account must have been related by him from some other work. In regard to its vagueness, one of the principal causes, undoubtedly, is a mutilation of the text; but the whole thing is told with obscurity. Suffice it to say, that in the opinion of Professor Tölken of Berlin, and the best modern critics, this wonderful piece could not have contained only three simple lines, as stated by Pliny, else how could it have been termed "the most noble work in the gallery, and the wonder of posterity."

At the time this occurrence took place, Protogenes lived in a state of poverty and neglect; but the generous notice of Apelles soon caused him to be valued as he deserved by the Rhodians. Apelles