Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/11

 best notes this new edition is indebted to that superintended by Montani and Masselli.

There is, besides, a German translation; and here, as elsewhere, the Germans have brought their unconquerable patience of research, and conscientious minuteness of investigation, to the work before them. The world has, consequently, to thank them for an admirable version, and for annotations which are in valuable. The French have also given what they call a translation; but this is an impertinent travesty, of which no more need be said.

In our own language, no translation, previous to the present, has appeared; but an abridgement of a few of the lives was published in a thin 4to, London, 1719.

Of the mode in which the present attempt has been performed, the reader will form his own judgment. The object of the translator has been to give Vasari as he is, without the slightest deviation from the letter of the text.

In doing this, certain sacrifices have not unfrequently been called for in respect to style. The reader whose taste has been formed on the more polished models of the present day, will, doubtless, be frequently reminded that Vasari wrote three hundred years since, and, even with this qualification, may sometimes think him rendered in too homely a manner; but the excellent Giorgio was a man of plain words, and we would not have him say to us, as Donato said to Duke Cosmo, "This mantle, that thou hast given me, is too dainty for my wear." From the vast amount of notes and commentaries accumulated in the different editions of our author, the