n or
Portugal; and therefore I advise you as a son that you ought not to depart
from Italy, because I fear that if you do you will repent it."

"I thank, you, Senhor Michael Angelo, for your advice," I said to him,
"but still I am serving the King of Portugal, and in Portugal I was born
and hope to die, and not in Italy. But as you make such a difference in
the value of painting in Italy and in Spain, do me the favour of teaching
me how painting ought to be valued, because I am in this matter so
scandalised that I do not trust myself to value any work."

"What do you call valuing?" he replied. "Do you wish the painting which we
are discussing to be paid for according to a valuation, or do you think
that any one knows how to value it? for I consider that work to be worth a
great price which has been done by the hand of a very capable man, even
though in a short time; if it were done in a very long time who will know
how to value it? And I hold that to be of very little value which has been
painted in many years by a person who does not know how to paint, although
he be called a painter; for works ought not to be esteemed because of the
amount of time employed and lost in the labour, but because of the merit
of the knowledge and of the hand which did them; for if it were not so,
they would not pay more to a lawyer for an hour's examination of an
important case, than to a weaver for as much cloth as he may weave during
the course of his whole life, or to a navvy who is bathed in sweat the
whole day by his work. By such variation nature is beautiful, and that
valuation is very foolish which is made by one who does not understand the
good or the bad in the work: some paintings worth little are valued
highly, and others, which are worth more, do not even pay for the care
with which they are done or for the discomfort that the painter himself
experiences when he knows that such persons have to value his work, or for
the exceeding disgust he feels asking for payment from an unappreciative
treasurer.

"It does not seem to me that the ancient painters were content with your
Spanish payments and valuations; and I certainly think they were not, for
we find that some were so magnificently liberal that, knowing that there
was not sufficient money in the country to pay for their works, they
presented them liberally for nothing, having spent on such work, labour of
their mind, time and money. Such were Zeuxis, Heracleotes and Polygnot