and most ancient age these three arts are seen to have been very distant
from their perfection, and, although they had something of the good, to
have been accompanied by so great imperfection that they certainly do
not merit too great praise; although, seeing that they gave a beginning
and showed the path and method to the better work that followed later,
if for no other reason, we cannot but speak well of them and give them a
little more glory than the works themselves have merited, were we to
judge them by the perfect standard of art.

Next, in the second, it is manifestly seen that matters were much
improved, both in the inventions and in the use of more design, better
manner, and greater diligence, in their execution; and likewise that the
rust of age and the rudeness and disproportion, wherewith the grossness
of that time had clothed them, were swept away. But who will be bold
enough to say that there was to be found at that time one who was in
every way perfect, and who brought his work, whether in invention, or
design, or colouring, to the standard of to-day, and contrived the sweet
gradation of his figures with the deep shades of colour, in a manner
that the lights remained only on the parts in relief, and likewise
contrived those perforations and certain extraordinary refinements in
marble statuary that are seen in the statues of to-day? The credit of
this is certainly due to the third age, wherein it appears to me that I
can say surely that art has done everything that it is possible for her,
as an imitator of nature, to do, and that she has climbed so high that
she has rather to fear a fall to a lower height than to ever hope for
more advancement.

Having pondered over these things intently in my own mind, I judge that
it is the peculiar and particular nature of these arts to go on
improving little by little from a humble beginning, and finally to
arrive at the height of perfection; and of this I am persuaded by seeing
that almost the same thing came to pass in other faculties, which is no
small argument in favour of its truth, seeing that there is a certain
degree of kinship between all the liberal arts. Now this must have
happened to painting and sculpture in former times in such similar
fashion, that, if the names were changed round, their histories would be
exactly the same. For if we can put faith in those who lived near those
times and could see and judge the labours of the ancients, it is seen
that