For not only
is it a contemporary record, like the lives inserted by Giorgio Vasari in
the two editions of his famous book, "The Lives of the Most Eminent
Painters, Sculptors, and Architects," published in Florence in 1550 and
1568; but Condivi's work has almost the authority of an autobiography,
many phrases are in the same words, as certain letters in the hand of
Michael Angelo still in existence, especially those relating to the early
life and the ancestry of the master, to his favourite nephew Lionardo, and
concerning the whole story of the Tragedy of the Tomb to Francesco
Fattucci and others.
Condivi's description of his master's personal appearance is so detailed
that we can see him with his sculptor's callipers measuring the head of
his dear master, and gazing earnestly into his eyes, recording the colours
of their scintillations, with the patience of a painter.
Vasari's account has been translated more than once, but Condivi's never,
at least never completely. Extracts have been given, and it has been the
main resource of every writer on the master; but the faithful and reverent
character of the whole work can only be given in a complete translation,
its transparent honesty, and its loving devotion. Even had the subject of
this naif and unscholarly narrative been an ordinary man in an ordinary
period, it would have been worth translating for its truth to life and
human nature, much more, therefore, when it is about the greatest
craftsman of the Cinque Cento.
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