at good work is, and
what he can make of it. It is a serious thing, this distance and
difference which exist between the high and the low understanding in
painting."

At this point M. Lactancio, who had not spoken for some time, said:

"I cannot suffer at all one indiscretion of bad painters, the images which
they paint without consideration or devotion in the churches. And I should
like to direct our discussion to this end, being sure that the
carelessness with which some paint the holy images cannot be good. Work
which a very incapable painter or man dares to do, without any fear, so
ignorantly that instead of moving mortals to devotion and tears, he
sometimes provokes them to laughter."

"This sort of painting is a great undertaking," proceeded M. Angelo; "in
order to imitate to some extent the venerable image of our Lord it is not
sufficient merely to be a great master in painting and very wise, but I
think that it is necessary for the painter to be very good in his mode of
life, or even, if such were possible, a saint, so that the Holy Spirit may
inspire his intellect. And we read that Alexander the Great put a heavy
penalty upon any painter other than Apelles who should paint him, for he
considered that man alone able to paint his appearance with that severity
and liberal mind which could not be seen without being praised by the
Greeks and feared and adored by the barbarians. And therefore if a poor
man of this earth so commanded by edict concerning his image, how much
more reason have the ecclesiastical or secular princes to take care to
order that no one shall paint the benignity and meekness of our Redeemer
or the purity of Our Lady and the Saints but the most illustrious painters
to be found in their domains and provinces? And this would be a very
famous and much praised work in any lord. And even in the Old Testament
God the Father wished that those who only had to ornament and paint the
_arca foederis_ should be masters not merely excellent and great, but also
touched by His grace and wisdom, God saying to Moses that He would imbue
them with the knowledge and intelligence of His Spirit so that they might
invent and do everything that He could invent and do. And therefore if God
the Father willed that the ark of His Covenant should be well ornamented
and painted, how much more study and consideration must He wish applied to
the imitation of His Serene Face and that of His Son our Lord, and of the
composure,