The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors Architects, Volume 1 | Page 4

world as a model, they originated these noble
arts, and by gradually improving them brought them at length, from
small beginnings, to perfection. I do not deny that there must have been
an originator, since I know quite well that there must have been a
beginning at some time, due to some individual. Neither will I deny
that it is possible for one person to help another, and to teach and open
the way to design, colour, and relief, because I know that our art
consists entirely of imitation, first of Nature, and then, as it cannot rise
so high of itself, of those things which are produced from the masters
with the greatest reputation. But I will say that an attempt to determine
the exact identity of such men is a very dangerous task, and the
knowledge when gained would probably prove unprofitable, since we
have seen the true and original root of all. But the life and fame of
artists depend upon their works which are destroyed by time one after
the other in the order of their creation. Thus the artists themselves are

unknown as there was no one to write about them and could not be, so
that this source of knowledge was not granted to posterity. But when
writers began to commemorate things made before their time, they
were unable to speak of those of which they had seen no notice, so that
those who came nearest to these were the last of whom no memorial
remains. Thus Homer is by common consent admitted to be the first of
the poets, not because there were none before him, for there were
although they were not so excellent, and in his own works this is
clearly shown, but because all knowledge of these, such as they were,
had been lost two thousand years before. But we will now pass over
these matters which are too vague on account of their antiquity and we
will proceed to deal with clearer questions, namely, the rise of the arts
to perfection, their decline and their restoration or rather renaissance,
and here we stand on much firmer ground. The practice of the arts
began late in Rome, if the first figures were, as reported, the image of
Ceres made of the money of Spurius Caasius, who was condemned to
death without remorse by his own father, because he was plotting to
make himself king. But although the arts of painting and sculpture
continued to flourish until the death of the last of the twelve Cæsars,
yet they did not maintain that perfection and excellence which had
characterised them before, as is seen as seen in the buildings of the time.
The arts declined steadily from day to day, until at length by a gradual
process they entirety lost all perfection of design. Clear testimony to
this is afforded by the works in sculpture and architecture produced in
Rome in the time of Constantine, notably in the triumphal arch made
for him by the Roman people at the Colosseum, where we see, that for
lack of good masters not only did they make use of marble works
carved in the time of Trajan, but also of spoils brought to Rome from
various places. These bas-reliefs, statues, the columns, the cornices and
other ornaments which belong to another epoch only serve to expose
the defects in those parts of the work which are entirely due to the
sculptors of the day and which are most rude. Very rude also are some
scenes of small figures in marble under the circles and the pediment,
representing victories, while between the side arches there are some
rivers also very crude and so poor that they leave one firmly under the
impression that the art of sculpture had been in a state of decadence for
a long while. Yet the Goths and the other barbarous and foreign nations

who combined to destroy all the superior arts in Italy had not then
appeared. It is true that architecture suffered less than the other arts of
design. The bath erected by Constantine at the entrance of the principal
portico of the Lateran contains, in addition to its porphyry columns,
capitals carved in marble and beautifully carved double bases taken
from elsewhere, the whole composition of the building being very well
ordered. On the other hand, the stucco, the mosaic and some
incrustations of the walls made by the masters of the time are not equal
to those which had been taken away for the most part from the temples
of the gods of the heathen, and which Constantine caused to be placed
in the same building. Constantine observed the same methods,
according to report, with the garden of Æquitius in building the temple
which he afterwards endowed and gave to