ibility, and he will wonder with amazement
how it can be possible, not to describe with the tongue, which is
easy, but to express with the brush the tremendous conceptions which
they put into execution with such mastery and dexterity, in
representing the deeds of the Romans exactly as they were.

And how many there are who, having given life to their figures with
their colours, are now dead, such as Il Rosso, Fra Sebastiano,
Giulio Romano, and Perino del Vaga! For of the living, who are known
to all through their own efforts, there is no need to speak here.
But what most concerns the whole world of art is that they have now
brought it to such perfection, and made it so easy for him who
possesses draughtsmanship, invention, and colouring, that, whereas
those early masters took six years to paint one panel, our modern
masters can paint six in one year, as I can testify with the
greatest confidence both from seeing and from doing; and our
pictures are clearly much more highly finished and perfect than
those executed in former times by masters of account.

But he who bears the palm from both the living and the dead,
transcending and eclipsing all others, is the divine Michelagnolo
Buonarroti, who holds the sovereignty not merely of one of these
arts, but of all three together. This master surpasses and excels
not only all those moderns who have almost vanquished nature, but
even those most famous ancients who without a doubt did so
gloriously surpass her; and in his own self he triumphs over
moderns, ancients, and nature, who could scarcely conceive anything
so strange and so difficult that he would not be able, by the force
of his most divine intellect and by means of his industry,
draughtsmanship, art, judgment, and grace, to excel it by a great
measure; and that not only in painting and in the use of colour,
under which title are comprised all forms, and all bodies upright or
not upright, palpable or impalpable, visible or invisible, but also
in the highest perfection of bodies in the round, with the point of
his chisel. And from a plant so beautiful and so fruitful, through
his labours, there have already spread branches so many and so
noble, that, besides having filled the world in such unwonted
profusion with the most luscious fruits, they have also given the
final form to these three most noble arts. And so great and so
marvellous is his perfection, that it may be safely and surely said
that his statues are in all