Now, the payments
and prices that in Italy are given for paintings also appear to me to have
a great deal to do with the fact that painting cannot be done anywhere but
here, because frequently for a head or face from nature one thousand
'cruzados' are paid, and many other works are paid for as you, gentlemen,
know better than I, very differently from the way they are paid for in
other kingdoms, seeing that mine is among the magnificent and wide. Now,
your Excellency, please to judge whether these be hindrances or helps."
"It seems to me," answered the Marchioness, "that before these hindrances
you must place talent and knowledge, which are not transalpine but belong
to the good Italian; however, everywhere virtue is the same, good is the
same, and evil is the same, although they may have a different
civilisation from ours."
"If that," I answered, "were heard in my country, well, Madam, they would
be astonished both at your Excellency praising me and in that manner, and
by your making that difference between Italians and other men whom you
call 'transalpine,' or from beyond the mountains:
'Non adeo obtusa gestamos pectora Poeni,
Nec tam auersus equos, Lysia, sol iungit ab urbe.'
"We have, Madam, in Portugal, good and ancient cities, and principally my
birthplace, Lisbon; we have good manners, and good courtiers and valiant
cavaliers and courageous princes, both in war and in peace, and above all
we have a very powerful and splendid king, who with great calmness tempers
and governs us, and commands very distant provinces of barbarians, whom he
has converted to the Faith; and he is feared by the whole East and by the
whole of Mauritania and is a patron of the Fine Arts, so much so that,
through making a mistake as to my talent, which in my youth promised some
fruit, he sent me to see Italy and its civilisation, and Master Michael
Angelo, whom I see here.
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