e, likewise, by reason of all the aforesaid considerations,
it has appeared that these masters deserve to be not only described by
me with all diligence, but praised with that love and confidence
wherewith I have done it. Nor do I think that it can have been wearisome
to my brother-craftsmen to read these their Lives, and to consider their
manners and methods, and from this, perchance, they will derive no
little profit; which will be right pleasing to me, and I will esteem it
a good reward for my labours, wherein I have sought to do nought else
but give them profit and delight to the best of my power.

[Footnote 8: The Ape of Nature.]

And now that we have weaned these three arts, to use such a fashion of
speaking, and brought them through their childhood, there comes their
second age, wherein there will be seen infinite improvement in
everything; invention more abundant in figures, and richer in ornament;
more depth and more lifelike reality in design; some finality, moreover,
in the works, which are executed thoughtfully and with diligence,
although with too little mastery of handling; with more grace in manner
and more loveliness in colouring, so that little is wanting for the
reduction of everything to perfection and for the exact imitation of the
truth of nature. Wherefore, with the study and the diligence of the
great Filippo Brunelleschi, architecture first recovered the measures
and proportions of the ancients, both in the round columns and in the
square pilasters, and in the corner-stones both rough and smooth; and
then one Order was distinguished from another, and it was shown what
differences there were between them. It was ordained that all works
should proceed by rule, should be pursued with better ordering, and
should be distributed with due measure. Design grew in strength and
depth; good grace was given to buildings; the excellence of that art
made itself known; and the beauty and variety of capitals and cornices
were recovered in such a manner, that the ground-plans of his churches
and of his other edifices are seen to have been very well conceived, and
the buildings themselves ornate, magnificent, and beautifully
proportioned, as it may be seen in the stupendous mass of the cupola of
S. Maria del Fiore in Florence, and in the beauty and grace of its
lantern; in the ornate, varied, and graceful Church of S. Spirito, and
in the no less beautiful edifice of S. Lorenzo; in the most bizarre
invention of th