hat those which
are the heaviest and most confused are so for no other reason but because
the writers are not good draughtsmen and are not very skilful in drawing
and dividing up their work; and the most facile and terse are those of the
best draughtsman. And even Quintilian in the perfection of his _Rhetoric_
lays it down that not only in the division of the words his orator should
draw, but that with his own hand he should know how to sketch and draw;
and hence it is, Senhor M. Angelo, that you may at times call a great man
of letters or a great preacher a good painter; and a great draughtsman you
may call a man of letters, and whosoever most penetrates into real
antiquity will find that painting and sculpture were both called painting,
and that in the time of Demosthenes they called _writing_ 'antigraphia,'
which means _drawing_, and it was a word common to both these sciences,
and that the writings of Agatharco can be called the painting of
Agatharco. And I think that the Egyptians also--all of them who had to
write or express anything--were accustomed to know how to paint, and even
their hieroglyphic signs were painted animals and birds, as is shown by
some obelisks in this city which came from Egypt. But if I speak of
poetry, it seems to me that it will not be very difficult for me to show
how true a sister she is to painting. But so that Senhor Francisco may
know how much necessity he has for poetry, and how much he may gain from
the best of it, I will show him here how much care the poets take
(although this is matter for a young man rather than for me) of their
profession and intelligence, and how much they praise and celebrate their
art as being free from penalties and blots; and it does not seem that the
poets worked for anything except to teach the beauties of painting, and
what ought to be avoided or done in it, with all their suavity and music
of verses, and with so many just and fluent words that I do not know how I
can repay them. Now one of the things in which they put the most study and
work (I speak of the famous poets) is in painting well or in imitating a
good painting; and this is due to the accuracy which, with the greatest
promptness and care, they desire to express and attain. And the one who
can attain this is the one who is the most excellent and clear. I remember
that the prince of them, Virgil, threw himself down to sleep at the foot
of a beech-tree, and how he has painted in words the forms of