than they themselves
do on very many; wherefore their prices appear to come from the quality
and the durability of the material itself, from the aids that it
requires for its completion, and from the time that is taken in working
it, rather than from the excellence of the art itself. And although that
does not suffice and no greater price is found, as would be easily seen
by anyone who were willing to consider it diligently, let them find a
greater price than the marvellous, beautiful, and living gift that
Alexander the Great made in return for the most splendid and excellent
work of Apelles, bestowing on him, not vast treasures or high estate,
but his own beloved and most beautiful Campaspe; let them observe, in
addition, that Alexander was young, enamoured of her, and naturally
subject to the passions of love, and also both a King and a Greek; and
then, from this, let them draw what conclusion they please. As for the
loves of Pygmalion and of those other rascals no more worthy to be men,
cited as proof of the nobility of the art, they know not what to answer,
if, from a very great blindness of intellect and from a licentiousness
unbridled beyond all natural bounds, there can be made a proof of
nobility. As for the man, whosoever he was, alleged by the sculptors to
have made sculpture of gold and painting of silver, they are agreed that
if he had given as much sign of judgment as of wealth, there would be no
disputing it; and finally, they conclude that the ancient Golden Fleece,
however celebrated it may be, none the less covered nothing but an
unintelligent ram; wherefore neither the testimony of riches nor that of
dishonest desires, but those of letters, of practice, of excellence, and
of judgment are those to which we must pay attention. Nor do they make
any answer to the difficulty of obtaining the marbles and the metals,
save this, that it springs from their own poverty and from the little
favour of the powerful, as has been said, and not from any degree of
greater nobility. To the extreme fatigues of the body and to the dangers
peculiar to them and to their works, laughing and without any ado they
answer that if greater fatigues and dangers prove greater nobility, the
art of quarrying the marbles from the bowels of mountains by means of
wedges, levers, and hammers must be more noble than sculpture, that of
the blacksmith must surpass the goldsmith's, and that of masonry must be
superior to architecture.

They sa