Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/84

76 the purpose of teaching us how effectual is the influence of the stars and constellations, distributing as they do, to one more, to another less, of the celestial favours; for these influences are, for the most part, the cause wherefore some of us are born with dispositions more or less energetic or slothful, more or less weak or powerful, impetuous or gentle, fortunate or unfortunate, gifted with genius or destitute of ability; and he who shall in any manner doubt the truth of this doctrine, will find himself undeceived by the life of the excellent and very ingenious painter, Perino del Vaga.

Born of indigent parents and abandoned by his kindred in his earliest youth, Perino was guided and governed by art alone—art, which he always acknowledged as his true mother, and ever honoured as such. With so much zeal accordingly did he devote himself to the study of painting, and such was the success of his unremitting endeavours to attain perfection, that he became capable of executing those most admirable and justly renowned works, by which in his day the glory of Genoa and the fame of the Prince Doria were so largely increased. Safely, and without hesitation may we believe therefore, that by Heaven alone are men of a condition so lowly conducted from the infinite depression in which they were born, to the summit of greatness whither they are seen to ascend, when, by the works they produce, and by the persistence of their endeavours in the vocation they have chosen, these men prove themselves to be true and earnest followers of knowledge. It was thus and with no inferior degree of zeal and truthfulness that Perino del Vaga, while in his youth, pursued, as he had adopted, the art of design, wherein he attained the highest distinction, and gave early evidence of the grace and perfection of manner which he afterwards acquired. This artist moreover, not only equalled the ancients in stucco-work, but