hat true
excellence which, having surpassed the age of the ancients, makes
the modern so glorious.

Rule, then, in architecture, was the process of taking measurements
from antiquities and studying the ground-plans of ancient edifices
for the construction of modern buildings. Order was the separating
of one style from another, so that each body should receive its
proper members, with no more interchanging between Doric, Ionic,
Corinthian, and Tuscan. Proportion was the universal law applying
both to architecture and to sculpture, that all bodies should be
made correct and true, with the members in proper harmony; and so,
also, in painting. Draughtsmanship was the imitation of the most
beautiful parts of nature in all figures, whether in sculpture or in
painting; and for this it is necessary to have a hand and a brain
able to reproduce with absolute accuracy and precision, on a level
surface--whether by drawing on paper, or on panel, or on some other
level surface--everything that the eye sees; and the same is true of
relief in sculpture. Manner then attained to the greatest beauty
from the practice which arose of constantly copying the most
beautiful objects, and joining together these most beautiful things,
hands, heads, bodies, and legs, so as to make a figure of the
greatest possible beauty. This practice was carried out in every
work for all figures, and for that reason it is called the beautiful
manner.

These things had not been done by Giotto or by the other early
craftsmen, although they had discovered the rudiments of all these
difficulties, and had touched them on the surface; as in their
drawing, which was sounder and more true to nature than it had been
before, and likewise in harmony of colouring and in the grouping of
figures in scenes, and in many other respects of which enough has
been said. Now although the masters of the second age improved our
arts greatly with regard to all the qualities mentioned above, yet
these were not made by them so perfect as to succeed in attaining to
complete perfection, for there was wanting in their rule a certain
freedom which, without being of the rule, might be directed by the
rule and might be able to exist without causing confusion or
spoiling the order; which order had need of an invention abundant in
every respect, and of a certain beauty maintained in every least
detail, so as to reveal all that order with more adornment. In
proportion there was wanting a certa