Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/373

Rh esteemed to surpass those of the ancients in as great a degree as his sculptures excel all the antique. But if the most renowned masters of old times, who, stimulated as they were by excessive rewards, produced their works amidst all the delights that fortune can bestow, obtain so large a share of our admiration, how much more highly should we not celebrate and extol even to the heavens, those most wonderful artists, who not only without reward, but iu miserable poverty, bring forth fruits so precious? It is therefore to be believed and may be affirmed, that if, in this our day, the due remuneration were accorded to upright effort, there would be still greater and much better works executed than were ever produced by the ancients. But since artists have now rather to combat with, and struggle against poverty, than to strive after, and labour for fame, so is their genius miserably crushed and buried, nor does this state of things permit them (reproach and shame to those who could bring the remedy, but who give themselves no trouble concerning the matter), to make their true value adequately known. But we have said enough on that subject, and it is time that we return to the Lives, proposing to treat circumstantially of all those who have performed celebrated works in the third manner; the first of whom was Leonardo da Vinci, with whom we will therefore begin.