Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/355

Rh their pay, and before he had become well acquainted with his new profession, was made the captain of two hundred men. The army of the Venetians was at that time before Zara in Sclavonia; and Morto, desirous of obtaining higher reputation in that calling than he had acquired in painting, made himself eminently conspicuous in a smart skirmish that one day took place there; and valorously fighting in that affray, he was left dead, as by name he had ever been, in the forty-fifth year of his age. But in his fame this master will never be dead, seeing that those who execute works of art for eternity, and have these to serve as their memorial after their own departure, are prevented by these their labours from, becoming the prey of death, because the gratitude of the historian supplies a perpetual testimony to their life and merits; zealously therefore should the masters of our arts devote themselves to the attainment of such a consummation by the frequency of their studies, thereby leaving records of their existence, both in their works and in the writings of authors, seeing that they may thus secure immortal life to themselves and an ever-during soul to the works which they leave behind them.

Morto da Feltro restored the practice of executing arabesques more nearly to that of the ancients than any other painter had done, and for this he well deserves enduring praise, the rather because it is to the commencement made by him that we are indebted for the beauty and perfection to which these works have been brought by the hands of Giovanni da Udine, and by the other artists now distinguishing themselves in that branch of art. For although it may have been by Giovanni and others that these decorations have been brought to their ultimate perfection, yet it is not to be forgotten that our first thanks and commendations are due to Morto, who was the first to discover and restore the kind of painting called arabesques and grottesche, seeing that they were for the most part hidden among the subterraneous portions of the ruins of Borne, whence he brought them, devoting all his study to this branch of art; we all know moreover, that