Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/365

Rh and Heaven; for, in that case, he would have been without an equal, and must have stood alone in the art of painting; whereas, by labouring in the search of that which he could never find, he wasted his time, and neglected and wronged his art, while he did injury to himself at the same time, both as regarded his life and fame.

Francesco was born in Parma in the year 1504, and being only a child of a few years old when his father died, he was left to the guardianship of two uncles, brothers of his father, and both painters; but these his kinsmen brought him up with the utmost care and affection, instilling into his mind all those good principles, and forming him to those praiseworthy habits which are required to make an upright man and good Christian. No sooner had Francesco attained to some little height than he began to manifest his inclination to art, and before he had well taken the pen in hand to learn to write, he began to produce works in design. Impelled as he was by the force of Nature, which had destined him at his birth to be a painter, he began to do things, I say, which awakened surprise in all who beheld them. The master who taught him to write, perceiving this, and persuaded that the genius of the child must in time produce great results, advised his uncles to devote him to the study of design and painting.

Now, these relatives were already become old men, and were besides painters of no great fame; but possessing good judgment in matters of art, and seeing that God and Nature had been the first teachers of the boy, they did not fail to promote his studies, and, with the utmost solicitude, at once selected for him the best masters, under whose discipline they caused him to exercise his art, to the end that he might acquire a good manner. His continued progress sufficed to