es taken from
Ovid and from other poets, or rather, stories related by the Greek and
Latin historians, and likewise chases, jousts, tales of love, and other
similar subjects, according to each man's particular pleasure. Then the
inside was lined with cloth or with silk, according to the rank and
means of those who had them made, for the better preservation of silk
garments and other precious things. And what is more, it was not only
the chests that were painted in such a manner, but also the couches, the
chair-backs, the mouldings that went right round, and other similar
magnificent ornaments for apartments which were used in those times,
whereof an infinite number may be seen throughout the whole city. And
for many years this fashion was so much in use that even the most
excellent painters exercised themselves in such labours, without being
ashamed, as many would be to-day, to paint and gild such things. And
that this is true has been seen up to our own day from some chests,
chair-backs, and mouldings, besides many other things, in the apartments
of the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici, the Elder, whereon there were
painted--by the hand, not of common painters, but of excellent masters,
and with judgment, invention, and marvellous art--all the jousts,
tournaments, chases, festivals, and other spectacles that took place in
his times. Of such things relics are still seen, not only in the palace
and the old houses of the Medici, but in all the most noble houses in
Florence; and there are men who, out of attachment to these ancient
usages, truly magnificent and most honourable, have not displaced these
things in favour of modern ornaments and usages. Dello, then, being a
very good and practised painter, and above all, as it has been said, in
making little pictures with much grace, applied himself for many years,
to his great profit and honour, to nothing else save adorning and
painting chests, chair-backs, couches, and other ornaments in the manner
described above, insomuch that it can be said to have been his principal
and peculiar profession. But since nothing in this world has permanence
or can endure any long time, however good and praiseworthy it may be, it
was not long before the refinement of men's intellects led them from
that first method of working to the making of richer ornaments and of
carvings in walnut-wood overlaid with gold, which make a very rich
adornment, and to the painting and colouring in oil of very bea