DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.57409#0430
414
LIVES OF THE ARTISTS
promising may be the occasion presented to such persons,
however trifling the object to be attained, they find means to
make it important, and to give it elevation. Therefore it is
that none should look with contemptuous glance on any one
whom he may encounter, having an aspect divested of that
grace and beauty which we might expect that Nature would
confer, even from his birth, upon him who is to exhibit dis-
tinguished talent, since it is beyond doubt that beneath the
clods of earth the veins of gold lie hidden. So much force
of mind, and so much goodness of heart, are frequently born
with men of the most unpromising exterior, that if these
be conjoined with nobility of soul, nothing short of the most
important and valuable results can be looked for from them,
since they labour to embellish the unsightly form by the
beauty and brightness of the spirit. This was clearly exem-
plified in Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, who was no less diminu-
tive in person than Messer Forete da Rabatta and Giotto,*
but who was of such exalted genius withal, that we may truly
declare him to have been given to us by heaven, for the purpose
of imparting a new spirit to architecture, which for hundreds
of years had been lost: for the men of those times had badly
expended great treasures in the erection of buildings without
order, constructed in a wretched manner after deplorable
designs, with fantastic inventions, laboured graces, and worse
decorations.^ But it then pleased Heaven, the earth having
been for so many years destitute of any distinguished mind
and divine genius, that Filippo Brunelleschi should leave to
the world, the most noble, vast, and beautiful edifice that had
ever been constructed in modern times, or even in those of
the ancients; giving proof that the talent of the Tuscan artists,
although lost for a time, was not extinguished. He was,
moreover, adorned by the most excellent qualities, among
which was that of kindliness, insomuch that there never was
a man of more benign and amicable disposition ; in judgment
he was calm and dispassionate, and laid aside all thought of
his own interest and even that of his friends, whenever he
perceived the merits and talents of others to demand that he
should do so. He knew himself, instructed many from the
* See Novella v of the Giornata vi of the Decameron.—Masselli.
f An exaggeration similar to that respecting Cimabue, but which has
frequently found an echo in later times.—Ibid.
LIVES OF THE ARTISTS
promising may be the occasion presented to such persons,
however trifling the object to be attained, they find means to
make it important, and to give it elevation. Therefore it is
that none should look with contemptuous glance on any one
whom he may encounter, having an aspect divested of that
grace and beauty which we might expect that Nature would
confer, even from his birth, upon him who is to exhibit dis-
tinguished talent, since it is beyond doubt that beneath the
clods of earth the veins of gold lie hidden. So much force
of mind, and so much goodness of heart, are frequently born
with men of the most unpromising exterior, that if these
be conjoined with nobility of soul, nothing short of the most
important and valuable results can be looked for from them,
since they labour to embellish the unsightly form by the
beauty and brightness of the spirit. This was clearly exem-
plified in Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, who was no less diminu-
tive in person than Messer Forete da Rabatta and Giotto,*
but who was of such exalted genius withal, that we may truly
declare him to have been given to us by heaven, for the purpose
of imparting a new spirit to architecture, which for hundreds
of years had been lost: for the men of those times had badly
expended great treasures in the erection of buildings without
order, constructed in a wretched manner after deplorable
designs, with fantastic inventions, laboured graces, and worse
decorations.^ But it then pleased Heaven, the earth having
been for so many years destitute of any distinguished mind
and divine genius, that Filippo Brunelleschi should leave to
the world, the most noble, vast, and beautiful edifice that had
ever been constructed in modern times, or even in those of
the ancients; giving proof that the talent of the Tuscan artists,
although lost for a time, was not extinguished. He was,
moreover, adorned by the most excellent qualities, among
which was that of kindliness, insomuch that there never was
a man of more benign and amicable disposition ; in judgment
he was calm and dispassionate, and laid aside all thought of
his own interest and even that of his friends, whenever he
perceived the merits and talents of others to demand that he
should do so. He knew himself, instructed many from the
* See Novella v of the Giornata vi of the Decameron.—Masselli.
f An exaggeration similar to that respecting Cimabue, but which has
frequently found an echo in later times.—Ibid.