Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/227

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It is for the most part usual to celebrate those only who have ably produced some great work, but if the works which a man has performed are such as to show that what he might have effected, had not some unusual circumstance occurred to impede or interrupt him, would have been much more excellent as well as numerous, he will certainly be esteemed, by all who desire to prove themselves just in their appreciation of the talents of others, for the one part as well as for the other, and will not be refused the amount of credit due to him for what he might have done, any more than that to which he may lay claim for what he has accomplished. Thus the sculptor Vinci should not be made to suffer in fame, by the fact that the years of his life were but few, nor should he be deprived of the meed of praise which will be due to him from those who shall come after us; it must ever be taken into consideration that he was but in the first bloom of life and early period of his studies when he produced the works which we now admire, but would evidently have brought forth an abundant harvest had not envious Fate destroyed by tempest both plant and fruit.

I remember having once before related that Ser Piero, the father of the most famous painter Leonardo da Vinci, was an inhabitant of the Castello di Vinci in the lower Valdarno; to this Ser Piero, then, there was born, after Leonardo, a younger son whom he called Bartolommeo, and who, remaining at Vinci, and having arrived at the age of manhood, took one of the best-born maidens of the Castello to wife. Now Bartolommeo was exceedingly desirous of a male child, and frequently described to his wife the greatness of that genius with which his brother Leonardo had been endowed; wherefore she prayed God that he would make her worthy to be the mother of a second Leonardo, and that by her means a successor might be presented to the family, he being now dead.

Some time afterwards, and when, according to his desire, there was born to Bartolommeo a graceful little son, he was minded to give the child the name of Leonardo, but being