s as "artificer," "art-worker," or "artisan," seem
even worse. "Craftsman" loses the alliterative connection with "art,"
but it comes nearest to expressing Vasari's idea of the "artefice" as a
practical workman (_cf._ his remark about Ambrogio Lorenzetti: "The ways
of Ambrogio were rather those of a 'gentiluomo' than of an
'artefice'").]

TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST EXCELLENT SIGNOR COSIMO DE' MEDICI,
DUKE OF FLORENCE AND SIENA

MY MOST HONOURED LORD,

Behold, seventeen years since I first presented to your most Illustrious
Excellency the Lives, sketched so to speak, of the most famous painters,
sculptors and architects, they come before you again, not indeed wholly
finished, but so much changed from what they were and in such wise
adorned and enriched with innumerable works, whereof up to that time I
had been able to gain no further knowledge, that from my endeavour and
in so far as in me lies nothing more can be looked for in them.

Behold, I say, once again they come before you, most Illustrious and
truly most Excellent Lord Duke, with the addition of other noble and
right famous craftsmen, who from that time up to our own day have passed
from the miseries of this life to a better, and of others who, although
they are still living in our midst, have laboured in these professions
to such purpose that they are most worthy of eternal memory. And in
truth it has been no small good-fortune for many that I, by the goodness
of Him in whom all things have their being, have lived so long that I
have almost rewritten this book; seeing that, even as I have removed
many things which had been included I know not how, in my absence and
without my consent, and have changed others, so too I have added many,
both useful and necessary, that were lacking. And as for the likenesses
and portraits of so many men of worth which I have placed in this work,
whereof a great part have been furnished by the help and co-operation of
your Excellency, if they are sometimes not very true to life, and if
they all have not that character and resemblance which the vivacity of
colours is wont to give them, that is not because the drawing and the
lineaments have not been taken from the life and are not characteristic
and natural; not to mention that a great part of them have been sent me
by the friends that I have in various places, and they have not all been
drawn by a good hand. Moreover, I have suffered no small inconvenience
in this