Then, growing up, although you may have been rude and
rough, by nature you are already so accustomed to have your eyes full of
the forms of the many old things of renown, that you cannot fail to
imitate them; and to all this are joined (as I say) distinguished talent
and indefatigable study and taste. You have remarkable masters to imitate,
and their works, and as regards new works the cities are full of the
curious things and novelties which are discovered and found every day. And
if all these things do not suffice, although I should consider them quite
sufficient for the perfection of any science, at least this is quite
enough; namely, that we, Portuguese, although some of us may be born with
nice talent and minds--as many are born--have a contempt for and consider it
fine to take little account of the arts, and we almost feel it a disgrace
to know much about them, wherefore we always leave them imperfect and
unfinished. You Italians alone, (I cannot even say Germans or Frenchmen),
give the greatest honour, the greatest nobility and the power to be more,
to a man who is a splendid painter or splendid in some faculty; and of all
your noblemen, captains, wise men, satirists, cardinals and Popes, that
man only who may attain the reputation of being perfect and rare in his
profession is ever exalted or thought much of by you. And as great princes
are not esteemed nor have any name in Italy, so it is a painter alone that
they call the _divine_--Michael Angelo, as you will find in letters which
Aretino, satirist of all Christian gentlemen, wrote you.
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