ber of the painters, proves their greater nobility; saying
that sculpture calls for a certain better disposition, both of mind and
of body, that are rarely found together, whereas painting contents
itself with any feeble temperament, so long as it has a hand, if not
bold, at least sure; and that this their contention is proved by the
greater prices cited in particular by Pliny, by the loves caused by the
marvellous beauty of certain statues, and by the judgment of him who
made the statue of sculpture of gold and that of painting of silver, and
placed the first on the right and the second on the left. Nor do they
even refrain from quoting the difficulties experienced before the
materials, such as the marbles and the metals, can be got into
subjection, and their value, in contrast to the ease of obtaining the
panels, the canvases, and the colours, for the smallest prices and in
every place; and further, the extreme and grievous labour of handling
the marbles and the bronzes, through their weight, and of working them,
through the weight of the tools, in contrast to the lightness of the
brushes, of the styles, and of the pens, chalk-holders, and charcoals;
besides this, that they exhaust their minds together with all the parts
of their bodies, which is something very serious compared with the quiet
and light work of the painter, using only his mind and hand. Moreover,
they lay very great stress on the fact that things are more noble and
more perfect in proportion as they approach more nearly to the truth,
and they say that sculpture imitates the true form and shows its works
on every side and from every point of view, whereas painting, being
laid on flat with most simple strokes of the brush and having but one
light, shows but one aspect; and many of them do not scruple to say that
sculpture is as much superior to painting as is truth to falsehood. But
as their last and strongest argument, they allege that for the sculptor
there is necessary a perfection of judgment not only ordinary, as for
the painter, but absolute and immediate, in a manner that it may see
within the marble the exact whole of that figure which they intend to
carve from it, and may be able to make many parts perfect without any
other model before it combines and unites them together, as Michelagnolo
has done divinely well; although, for lack of this happiness of
judgment, they make easily and often some of those blunders which have
no remedy, and which, whe