able to attain, now that
Fortune promises me so much favour, that, with greater ease and greater
credit for myself and with greater satisfaction to others, I may
perchance be able, as well with the pen as with the brush, to unfold my
ideas to the world, whatsoever they may be. For besides the help and
protection for which I must hope from your Excellency, as my liege lord
and as the protector of poor followers of the arts, it has pleased the
goodness of God to elect as His Vicar on earth the most holy and most
blessed Julius III, Supreme Pontiff and a friend and patron of every
kind of excellence and of these most excellent and most difficult arts
in particular, from whose exalted liberality I expect recompense for
many years spent and many labours expended, and up to now without fruit.
And not only I, who have dedicated myself to the perpetual service of
His Holiness, but all the gifted craftsmen of this age, must expect from
him such honour and reward and opportunities for practising the arts so
greatly, that already I rejoice to see these arts arriving in his time
at the greatest height of their perfection, and Rome adorned by
craftsmen so many and so noble that, counting them with those of
Florence, whom your Excellency is calling every day into activity, I
hope that someone after our time will have to write a fourth part to my
book, enriching it with other masters and other masterpieces than those
described by me; in which company I am striving with every effort not to
be among the last.

Meanwhile, I am content if your Excellency has good hope of me and a
better opinion than that which, by no fault of mine, you have perchance
conceived of me; beseeching you not to let me be undone in your
estimation by the malignant tales of other men, until at last my life
and my works shall prove the contrary to what they say.

Now with that intent to which I hold, always to honour and to serve
your Excellency, dedicating to you this my rough labour, as I have
dedicated to you every other thing of mine and my own self, I implore
you not to disdain to grant it your protection, or at least to
appreciate the devotion of him who offers it to you; and recommending
myself to your gracious goodness, most humbly do I kiss your hand.

Your Excellency's most humble Servant,
GIORGIO VASARI,
_Painter of Arezzo_.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The word "artist" has become impossible as a translation of
"artefice." Such word