orse could be
imagined.

Thus far have I thought fit to discourse from the beginning of sculpture
and of painting, and peradventure at greater length than was necessary
in this place, which I have done, indeed, not so much carried away by my
affection for art as urged by the common benefit and advantage of our
craftsmen. For having seen in what way she, from a small beginning,
climbed to the greatest height, and how from a state so noble she fell
into utter ruin, and that, in consequence, the nature of this art is
similar to that of the others, which, like human bodies, have their
birth, their growth, their growing old, and their death; they will now
be able to recognize more easily the progress of her second birth and of
that very perfection whereto she has risen again in our times. And I
hope, moreover, that if ever (which God forbid) it should happen at any
time, through the negligence of men, or through the malice of time, or,
finally, through the decree of Heaven, which appears to be unwilling
that the things of this earth should exist for long in one form, that
she falls again into the same chaos of ruin; that these my labours,
whatsoever they may be worth (if indeed they may be worthy of a happier
fortune), both through what has been already said and through what
remains to say, may be able to keep her alive or at least to encourage
the most exalted minds to provide them with better assistance; so much
so that, what with my good will and the works of these masters, she may
abound in those aids and adornments wherein, if I may freely speak the
truth, she has been wanting up to the present day.

But it is now time to come to the Life of Giovanni Cimabue, and even as
he gave the first beginning to the new method of drawing and painting,
so it is just and expedient that he should give it to the Lives, in
which I will do my utmost to observe, the most that I can, the order of
their manners rather than that of time. And in describing the forms and
features of the craftsmen I will be brief, seeing that their portraits,
which have been collected by me with no less cost and fatigue than
diligence, will show better what sort of men the craftsmen themselves
were in appearance than describing them could ever do; and if the
portrait of any one of them should be wanting, that is not through my
fault but by reason of its being nowhere found. And if the said
portraits were not peradventure to appear to someone to be absolutely