Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/315

Rh the character of the circumstances by which the prime movers have been actuated; with the consequences, beneficial or disastrous, which have been the results of all. This is, without doubt, the soul of history. From these details it is that men learn the true government of life; and to secure this effect, therefore, with the addition of the pleasure which may be derived from having past events presented to the view as living and present, is to be considered the legitimate aim of the historian.

Moved by these considerations, I determined, having undertaken to write the history of the noblest masters in our arts, to pursue the method observed by these distinguished writers, so far as my powers would permit; imitating these ingenious men, and desiring, above all things, to honour the arts, and those who labour in them. I have endeavoured, not only to relate what has been done, but to set forth and distinguish the better from the good, and the best from the better, the most distinguished from the less prominent qualities and works, of those who belong to our vocation. I have further sought, with diligence, to discriminate between the different methods, manners, and processes adopted and displayed by the different painters and sculptors, not omitting to notify their various phantasies, inventions, and modes of treatment, all which I have investigated to the best of my ability, that I might the better make known to those who could not pursue the enquiry for themselves, the sources and causes of the different methods, as well as of that amelioration and deterioration of the arts which have been seen to take place at different periods, and by the agency of different persons.

In the First Part of these Lives I have spoken of the nobility and antiquity of these our arts, as at that point of our work was desirable, omitting many remarks by Pliny, and other writers, of which I might have availed myself, if I had not preferred—perhaps in opposition to the opinion of many readers—rather to permit that each should remain free to seek the ideas of others in their original sources. And this I did to avoid that prolixity and tediousness which are the mortal enemies of attention. But on this occasion it appears to me beseeming that I should do what I did not then permit myself—namely, present a more exact and definite