in correctness of judgment, by
means of which their figures, without having been measured, might
have, in due relation to their dimensions, a grace exceeding
measurement. In their drawing there was not the perfection of
finish, because, although they made an arm round and a leg straight,
the muscles in these were not revealed with that sweet and facile
grace which hovers midway between the seen and the unseen, as is the
case with the flesh of living figures; nay, they were crude and
excoriated, which made them displeasing to the eye and gave hardness
to the manner. This last was wanting in the delicacy that comes from
making all figures light and graceful, particularly those of women
and children, with the limbs true to nature, as in the case of men,
but veiled with a plumpness and fleshiness that should not be
awkward, as they are in nature, but refined by draughtsmanship and
judgment. They also lacked our abundance of beautiful costumes, our
great number and variety of bizarre fancies, loveliness of
colouring, wide knowledge of buildings, and distance and variety in
landscapes. And although many of them, such as Andrea Verrocchio and
Antonio del Pollaiuolo, and many others more modern, began to seek
to make their figures with more study, so as to reveal in them
better draughtsmanship, with a degree of imitation more correct and
truer to nature, nevertheless the whole was not yet there, even
though they had one very certain assurance--namely, that they were
advancing towards the good, and their figures were thus approved
according to the standard of the works of the ancients, as was seen
when Andrea Verrocchio restored in marble the legs and arms of the
Marsyas in the house of the Medici in Florence. But they lacked a
certain finish and finality of perfection in the feet, hands, hair,
and beards, although the limbs as a whole are in accordance with the
antique and have a certain correct harmony in the proportions. Now
if they had had that minuteness of finish which is the perfection
and bloom of art, they would also have had a resolute boldness in
their works; and from this there would have followed delicacy,
refinement, and supreme grace, which are the qualities produced by
the perfection of art in beautiful figures, whether in relief or in
painting; but these qualities they did not have, although they give
proof of diligent striving. That finish, and that certain something
that they lacked, they could not achieve so