beautiful design that he had shown to
them in the beginning; for, in truth, in making beautiful designs
Battista had no peer and could be called an able man. Which recognizing,
the Duke thought that his designs would succeed very well if carried
into execution by those who were fashioning vases of clay so excellently
at Castel Durante, for which they had availed themselves much of the
prints of Raffaello da Urbino and other able masters; and he caused
Battista to draw innumerable designs, which, when put into execution in
that sort of clay, the most kindly of all that there are in Italy,
produced a rare result. Wherefore vases were made in such numbers and of
as many kinds as would have sufficed to do honour to the credence of a
King; and the pictures that were painted on them would not have been
better if they had been executed in oils by the most excellent masters.
Of these vases, which in the quality of the clay much resemble the kind
that was wrought at Arezzo in ancient times, in the days of Porsenna,
King of Tuscany, the above-named Duke Guidobaldo sent enough for a
double credence to the Emperor Charles V, and a set to Cardinal Farnese,
the brother of Signora Vittoria, his consort. And it is right that it
should be known that of this kind of paintings on vases, in so far as we
can judge, the Romans had none, for the vases of those times, filled
with the ashes of their dead or used for other purposes, are covered
with figures hatched and grounded with only one colour, either black, or
red, or white; nor have they ever that lustrous glazing or that charm
and variety of paintings which have been seen and still are seen in our
own times. Nor can it be said that, if perchance they did have such
things, the paintings have been consumed by time and by their having
been buried, for the reason that we see our own resisting the assaults
of time and every other danger, insomuch that it may even be said that
they might remain four thousand years under the ground without the
paintings being spoilt. Now, although vases and paintings of that kind
are made throughout all Italy, yet the best and most beautiful works in
clay are those that are wrought, as I have said, at Castel Durante, a
place in the State of Urbino, and those of Faenza, the best of which are
for the most part of a very pure white, with few paintings, and those in
the centre or on the edges, but delicate and pleasing enough.

But to return to Battista: for the nup