bours to the age of fifty-five years, and look to live
so long as it shall please God, honouring Him, ever at the service of my
friends, and working in so far as my strength shall allow for the
benefit and advantage of these most noble arts.

THE AUTHOR TO THE CRAFTSMEN OF DESIGN

Honoured and noble craftsmen, for whose profit and advantage, chiefly, I
set myself a second time to so long a labour, I now find that by the
favour and assistance of the Divine Grace I have accomplished in full
that which at the beginning of this my present task I promised myself to
do. For which result rendering thanks first to God and afterwards to my
lords, who have granted me the facilities whereby I have been able to do
this advantageously, I must then give repose to my weary pen and brain,
which I shall do as soon as I shall have made some brief observations.
If, then, it should appear to anyone that in my writing I have been at
times rather long and even somewhat prolix, let him put it down to this,
that I have sought as much as I have been able to be clear, and before
any other thing to set down my story in such a manner that what has not
been understood the first time, or not expressed satisfactorily by me,
might be made manifest at any cost. And if what has been said once has
been at times repeated in another place, the reasons for this have been
two--first, that the matter that I was treating required it, and then
that during the time when I rewrote and reprinted the work I broke off
my writing more than once for a period not of days merely but of months,
either for journeys or because of a superabundance of labours, works of
painting, designs, and buildings; besides which, for a man like myself
(I confess it freely) it is almost impossible to avoid every error. To
those to whom it might appear that I have overpraised any craftsmen,
whether old or modern, and who, comparing the old with those of the
present age, might laugh at them, I know not what else to answer save
that my intention has always been to praise not absolutely but, as the
saying is, relatively, having regard to place, time, and other similar
circumstances; and in truth, although Giotto, for example, was much
extolled in his day, I know not what would have been said of him, as of
other old masters, if he had lived in the time of Buonarroti, whereas
the men of this age, which is at the topmost height of perfection, would
not be in the position that they are if