DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.73714#0065
RAPHAEL MENGS. 6§
negligence, through insidelity, and through the
inaccuracy with which he wrote the lives of those
who were not Tuscans, praising above the clouds
many of them who merited not even to be men-
tioned, I cannot believe Vasari so malignant,
since all his writings indicate a goodness of heart,
and an honest man ; from whence I think that
he praised from sincerity him whom he thought
praise-worthy according to the best of his judg-
ment. Therefore, that which he did not under-
hand it was not possible for him to praise ; and is
he had known in what consisted the grace of the
works of Correggio, and the true merit of those
of Raphael, he would certainly have praised
them, confining himself to those parts, and
would not so whimsically have taken the subjedt
of praising them for their manner of painting
hair.
One sees Vasari was persuaded, that beyond
the school and manner of Michael Angelo,
little good was to be expected from the fine arts.
He collected all the little stories which vulgarly
were prevalent amongst the prof ssors. He un-
derstood the arts as a mechanic : he had no better
skill; and willing to write a voluminous work,
he compiled lives in the bed manner he could,
and in a style insipid and vulgar, which he
usually spoke with his bricklayers and carpenters.
Monsignor Bottari, his defender and panegyrist,
excuses him in another manner, by saying, " it is
not possible that Vasari would tell a lie in a thing
in which he could be convinced with so much
ease." A feeble reason indeed ! If Vasari had
vol, iii, F
negligence, through insidelity, and through the
inaccuracy with which he wrote the lives of those
who were not Tuscans, praising above the clouds
many of them who merited not even to be men-
tioned, I cannot believe Vasari so malignant,
since all his writings indicate a goodness of heart,
and an honest man ; from whence I think that
he praised from sincerity him whom he thought
praise-worthy according to the best of his judg-
ment. Therefore, that which he did not under-
hand it was not possible for him to praise ; and is
he had known in what consisted the grace of the
works of Correggio, and the true merit of those
of Raphael, he would certainly have praised
them, confining himself to those parts, and
would not so whimsically have taken the subjedt
of praising them for their manner of painting
hair.
One sees Vasari was persuaded, that beyond
the school and manner of Michael Angelo,
little good was to be expected from the fine arts.
He collected all the little stories which vulgarly
were prevalent amongst the prof ssors. He un-
derstood the arts as a mechanic : he had no better
skill; and willing to write a voluminous work,
he compiled lives in the bed manner he could,
and in a style insipid and vulgar, which he
usually spoke with his bricklayers and carpenters.
Monsignor Bottari, his defender and panegyrist,
excuses him in another manner, by saying, " it is
not possible that Vasari would tell a lie in a thing
in which he could be convinced with so much
ease." A feeble reason indeed ! If Vasari had
vol, iii, F