DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32873#0048
XXXIV
INTRODUCTION
There is, moreover, another point to which Mr. John
Addington Symonds alludes in his Introduction (p.
xlviii). He tells us that "although Mr. Roscoe in his
preface declares that he has adhered closely to the
original text published by Molini, he deals unscrupu-
lously with some important passages." This, as the
student of this new version will easily discover, is a
most just stricture. Mr. Symonds, after referring to the
most important of the " modified " passages, then pro-
ceeds to quote a number of sentences, taken at random,
wherein Mr. Roscoe has—either through inadvertence
or ignorance—entirely missed the author's meaning,
and thus lost the whole point of what he wished to
say. Some of these mistakes are really of so serious
a nature that the present translator finds himself re-
luctantly compelled to contradict, with some emphasis,
the statement made in the last paragraph of Mr. Roscoe's
Preface. If Signor Molini adhered closely to the original
text, this " rule " has certainly not been as strictly ob-
served in the English version of Mr. Roscoe.
When we come to the discussion of Cellini's claim to
stand among the great masters of Italian plastic art in
the sixteenth century, we find ourselves confronted by
grave difficulties. In the first place Italian taste had itself
already passed its zenith, and its decline had begun to set
in. There were, moreover, many goldsmiths working at
that period in Florence and Rome, whose names have
not come down to us, and whose achievements, if they
copy is known contemporary with or within the same century as
the writer, and all those existing are more or less incomplete or
faulty. A detailed discussion, however, of their importance would
be too lengthy and digressive for insertion here.
INTRODUCTION
There is, moreover, another point to which Mr. John
Addington Symonds alludes in his Introduction (p.
xlviii). He tells us that "although Mr. Roscoe in his
preface declares that he has adhered closely to the
original text published by Molini, he deals unscrupu-
lously with some important passages." This, as the
student of this new version will easily discover, is a
most just stricture. Mr. Symonds, after referring to the
most important of the " modified " passages, then pro-
ceeds to quote a number of sentences, taken at random,
wherein Mr. Roscoe has—either through inadvertence
or ignorance—entirely missed the author's meaning,
and thus lost the whole point of what he wished to
say. Some of these mistakes are really of so serious
a nature that the present translator finds himself re-
luctantly compelled to contradict, with some emphasis,
the statement made in the last paragraph of Mr. Roscoe's
Preface. If Signor Molini adhered closely to the original
text, this " rule " has certainly not been as strictly ob-
served in the English version of Mr. Roscoe.
When we come to the discussion of Cellini's claim to
stand among the great masters of Italian plastic art in
the sixteenth century, we find ourselves confronted by
grave difficulties. In the first place Italian taste had itself
already passed its zenith, and its decline had begun to set
in. There were, moreover, many goldsmiths working at
that period in Florence and Rome, whose names have
not come down to us, and whose achievements, if they
copy is known contemporary with or within the same century as
the writer, and all those existing are more or less incomplete or
faulty. A detailed discussion, however, of their importance would
be too lengthy and digressive for insertion here.