have, not only from the hands of Holbein, Rubens, and Vandyck (one of them admirable for Historypainting, and the other two for Portraits), but of many Flemish Masters, and those not inconsiderable, though for design not equal to the Italians. And of these latter also, we are not unfurnished with some pieces of Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Michael Angelo, and others. But to return to my own undertaking of this translation; I freely own that I thought myself uncapable of performing it, either to their satisfaction, or my own credit. Not but that I understood the original Latin, and the French Author perhaps as well as most Englishmen; but I was not sufficiently versed in the terms of art and therefore thought that many of those persons, who put this honourable task on me, were more able to perform it themselves, as undoubtedly they were. But they assuring me of their assistance in correcting my faults, where I spoke improperly, I was encouraged to attempt it, that I might not be wanting in what I could, to satisfy the desires of so many Gentlemen who were willing to give the world this useful work. They have effectually performed their promise to me, and I have been as careful on my side to take their advice on all things, so that the reader may assure himself of a tolerable translation ; not elegant, for I proposed not that to myself, but familiar, clear, and instructive: in any of which parts, if I have failed, the fault lies wholly at my door. In this one particular only, I must beg the reader's pardon the Prose Translation of the Poem is not free from poetical expressions, and I dare not promise that some of them are not fustian, or at least highly metaphorical; but this being a fault in the first digestion (that is, the original Latin), was not to be remedied in the second, viz. the Translation; and I may confi : dently say, that whoever had attempted it, must have fallen into the same inconvenience, or a much greater, that of a false version. When I undertook this work, I was already engaged in the translation of Virgil, from whom I have borrowed only two months, and am now returning to that which I ought to understand better. In the mean time, I beg the reader's pardon for entertaining him so long with myself; it is an usual part of ill manners in all Authors, and almost in all mankind, to trouble others with their business; and I was so sensible of it before-hand, that I had not now committed it, unless some concernments of the readers had been interwoven with my own. But I know not, while I am atoning for one error, if I am not falling into another for I have been importuned to say something farther of this art; and to make some observations on it, in relation to the likeness and agreement which it has with Poetry its Sister. But before I proceed, it will not be amiss, if I copy from Bellori (a most ingenious author) some part of his idea of a Painter, which cannot be unpleasing, at least to such who are conversant in the philosophy of Plato; and, to avoid tediousness, I will not translate the whole discourse, but take and leave, as I find occasion. "God Almighty, in the fabric of the universe, first contemplated himself, and reflected on his own excellencies; from which he drew and constituted those first forms, which are called ideas, so that every species which was afterwards expressed was produced from that first idea, forming that wonderful contexture of all created beings. But the celestial bodies above the moon being incorruptible and not subject to change, remained for ever fair and in perpetual order. On the contrary, all things which are sublunary are subject to change, to deformity, and to decay; and though Nature always intends a consummate beauty in her productions, yet, through the inequality of the matter, the forms are altered; and in particular human beauty suffers alteration for the worse, as we see to our mortification, in the deformities and disproportions which are in us. For which reason, the artful Painter, and the Sculptor, imitating the Divine Maker, form to themselves, as well as they are able, a model of the superior beauties; and, reflecting on them, endeavour to correct and amend the common nature, and to represent it as it was first created, without fault, either in colour or in lineament. "This idea, which we may call the Goddess of Painting and of Sculpture, descends upon the marble and the cloth, and becomes the original of those arts; and, being measured by the compass of the intellect, is itself the measure of the performing hand: and, being animated by the imagination, infuses life into the image. The idea of the Painter and the Sculptor is undoubtedly that perfect and excellent example of the mind, by imitation of which imagined form all things are represented which fall under human sight: such is the definition which is made by Cicero, in his book of the Orator, to Brutus. As therefore in forms and figures there is somewhat which is excellent and perfect, to which imagined species all things are ' referred by imitation, which are the objects of sight; ' in like manner we behold the species of eloquence in ' our minds, the effigies, or actual image of which we 'seek in the organs of our hearing. This is likewise 'confirmed by Proclus, in the Dialogue of Plato, called Timæus: If, says he, you take a man as he is made 'by Nature, and compare him with another who is the ' effect of Art, the work of Nature will always appear 'the less beautiful, because Art is more accurate than 'Nature.' But Zeuxis, who, from the choice which he made of five virgins, drew that wonderful picture of Helena, which Cicero, in his Orator before mentioned, sets before us, as the most perfect example of beauty, at the same time admonishes a Painter to contemplate the ideas of the most natural forms; and to make a judicious choice of several bodies, all of them the most elegant which we can find: by which we may plainly understand, that he thought it impossible to find in any one body all those perfections which he sought for the accomplishment of a Helena, because nature in any individual person makes nothing that is perfect in all its parts. For this reason Maximus Tyrius also says, that the image which is taken by a Painter from several bodies produces a beauty, which it is impossible to find in any single natural body, approaching to the perfection of the fairest statues. Thus Nature, on this account, is so much inferior to Art, that those Artists who propose to themselves only the imitation or likeness of such or such a particular person, without election of those ideas before mentioned, have often been reproached for that omission. Demetrius was taxed for being too natural; Dionysius was also blamed for drawing men like us, and was commonly called 'Av@pwróypapos, that is, a Painter of Men. In our times, Michael Angelo da Caravaggio was esteemed too natural: he drew persons as they were; and Bamboccio, and most of the Dutch Painters, have drawn the worst likeness. Lysippus, of old, upbraided the common sort of Sculptors for making men such as they were found in Nature; and boasted of himself, that he made them as they ought to be; which is a precept of Aristotle, given as well to Poets as to Painters. Phidias raised an admiration even to astonishment in those who beheld his statues, with the forms which he gave to his Gods and Heroes, by imitating the Idea rather than Nature; and Cicero, speaking of him, affirms, that figuring Jupiter and Pallas, he did not contemplate any object from whence he took any likeness, but considered in his own mind a great and admirable form of beauty, and according to that image in his soul, he directed the operation of his hand. Seneca also seems to wonder that Phidias, having never beheld either Jove or Pallas, yet could conceive their divine images in his mind. Apollonius Tyanæus says the same in other words, that the Fancy more instructs the Painter than the Imitation; for the last makes only the things which it sees, but the first makes also the things which it never sees. "Leon Battista Alberti tells us, that we ought not so much to love the likeness as the beauty, and to choose from the fairest bodies severally the fairest parts. Leonardo da Vinci instructs the Painter to form this idea to himself; and Raffaelle, the greatest of all modern masters, writes thus to Castiglione, concerning his Galatea: To paint a fair one, it is necessary for me to see many fair ones; but because there 'is so great a scarcity of lovely women, I am constrained 'to make use of one certain idea, which I have 'formed to myself in my own fancy.' Guido Reni sending to Rome his St. Michael, which he had painted for the Church of the Capuchins, at the same time wrote to Monsignor Massano, who was the maestro di casa (or steward of the house) to Pope Urban VIII. in this manner: I wish I had the wings of an angel, to 'have ascended into Paradise, and there to have 'beheld the forms of those beatified spirits, from which I might have copied my Archangel: but not being ' able to mount so high, it was in vain for me to search 'his resemblance here below; so that I was forced to |