e been
deprived of the delightful History of Artists by Vasari: although a mere
painter and goldsmith, and not a literary man, Vasari was blessed with
the nice discernment of one deeply conversant with art, and saw rightly
what was to be done, when the idea of the work was suggested by the
celebrated Paulus Jovius as a supplement to his own work of the
"Eulogiums of Illustrious Men." Vasari approved of the project; but on
that occasion judiciously observed, not blinded by the celebrity of the
literary man who projected it, that "It would require the assistance of
an artist to collect the materials, and arrange them in their proper
order; for although Jovius displayed great knowledge in his
observations, yet he had not been equally accurate in the arrangement of
his facts in his book of Eulogiums." Afterwards, when Vasari began to
collect his information, and consulted Paulus Jovius on the plan,
although that author highly approved of what he saw, he alleged his own
want of leisure and ability to complete such an enterprise; and this was
fortunate: we should otherwise have had, instead of the rambling spirit
which charms us in the volumes of Vasari, the verbose babble of a
declaimer. Vasari, however, looked round for the assistance he wanted; a
circumstance which Tiraboschi has not noticed: like Hogarth, he required
a literary man for his scribe. I have discovered the name of the chief
writer of the Lives of the Painters, who wrote under the direction of
Vasari, and probably often used his own natural style, and conveyed to
us those reflections which surely come from their source. I shall give
the passage, as a curious instance where the secret history of books is
often detected in the most obscure corners of research. Who could have
imagined that in a collection of the lives _de' Santi e Beati dell'
Ordine de' Predicatori_, we are to look for the writer of Vasari's
lives? Don Serafini Razzi, the author of this ecclesiastical biography,
has this reference: "Who would see more of this may turn to the Lives of
the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, _written for the greater part
by Don Silvano Razzi_, my brother, for the Signor Cavaliere M. Giorgio
Vasari, his great friend."[81]

The discovery that Vasari's volumes were not entirely written by
himself, though probably under his dictation, and unquestionably, with
his communications, as we know that Dr. Morell wrote the "Analysis of
Beauty" for Hogarth, will perhaps serve