read_ "which
tabernacle is in the round."

Page 127, lines 11, 12, _for_ "oval spaces" _read_ "mandorle."

Page 196, line 18, _for_ "an oval space" _read_ "a mandorla."

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO THIS EDITION

Vasari introduces himself sufficiently in his own prefaces and
introduction; a translator need concern himself only with the system by
which the Italian text can best be rendered in English. The style of
that text is sometimes laboured and pompous; it is often ungrammatical.
But the narrative is generally lively, full of neat phrases, and
abounding in quaint expressions--many of them still recognizable in the
modern Florentine vernacular--while, in such Lives as those of Giotto,
Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelagnolo, Vasari shows how well he can rise
to a fine subject. His criticism is generally sound, solid, and direct;
and he employs few technical terms, except in connection with
architecture, where we find passages full of technicalities, often so
loosely used that it is difficult to be sure of their exact meaning. In
such cases I have invariably adopted the rendering which seemed most in
accordance with Vasari's actual words, so far as these could be
explained by professional advice and local knowledge; and I have
included brief notes where they appeared to be indispensable.

In Mrs. Foster's familiar English paraphrase--for a paraphrase it is
rather than a translation--all Vasari's liveliness evaporates, even
where his meaning is not blurred or misunderstood. Perhaps I have gone
too far towards the other extreme in relying upon the Anglo-Saxon side
of the English language rather than upon the Latin, and in taking no
liberties whatever with the text of 1568. My intention, indeed, has been
to render my original word for word, and to err, if at all, in favour of
literalness. The very structure of Vasari's sentences has usually been
retained, though some freedom was necessary in the matter of the
punctuation, which is generally bewildering. As Mr. Horne's only too
rare translation of the Life of Leonardo da Vinci has proved, it is by
some such method that we can best keep Vasari's sense and Vasari's
spirit--the one as important to the student of Italian art as is the
other to the general reader. Such an attempt, however, places an English
translator of the first volume at a conspicuous disadvantage. Throughout
the earlier Lives Vasari seems to be feeling his way. He is not sure of
himself, and his style