"We have, Madam, in Portugal, good and ancient cities, and principally my birthplace, Lisbon; we have good manners, and good courtiers and valiant cavaliers and courageous princes, both in war and in peace, and above all we have a very powerful and splendid king, who with great calmness tempers and governs us, and commands very distant provinces of barbarians, whom he has converted to the Faith; and he is feared by the whole East and by the whole of Mauritania and is a patron of the Fine Arts, so much so that, through making a mistake as to my talent, which in my youth promised some fruit, he sent me to see Italy and its civilisation, and Master Michael Angelo, whom I see here. It is quite true that we have not such buildings and pictures as you have, but they are already being made, and little by little they are losing that barbarian superfluity that the Goths and Moors sowed throughout Spain. I also hope that, on arriving in Portugal after leaving here, I may assist either in the elegance of building or in the nobility of painting, so that we may be able to compete with you. Our science is almost entirely lost, and without honour or renown in those kingdoms, and not through the fault of others, but through the fault of the place and disusage, to such extent that very few esteem it or understand it unless it be our most serene king, by supporting all virtue [pg 285]and patronising it; and likewise the most serene infante D. Luiz, his brother, a very valorous and wise prince, who has a very nice knowledge and discretion in every liberal art. All the others neither understand nor esteem painting."
"They do well," said M. Angelo.
But Master Lactancio Tolomei, who had not spoken for some time, proceeded in this manner:
"We Italians have this very great advantage over all other nations in this great world, in the knowledge and honour of all the illustrious and most worthy arts and sciences. But I would have you to know, M. Francisco d'Ollanda, that whoever does not understand and esteem the most noble art of painting does so because of his own defects and not because of the art, which is very noble and clear; and because he is a barbarian and without judgment, and has no honourable part in being a man. And this is proved by the example of the most powerful old and modern emperors and kings, and of the philosophers and wise persons who attained everything, and who so greatly esteemed and appreciated the knowledge of painting, and spoke of it with such high praises and examples, and in making use of it and paying for it so liberally and magnificently and, finally, by the great honour that the Mother Church does it, with the holy Pontiffs, cardinals, and great princes and prelates. And so you will find in all the past centuries, all the past valorous peoples and nations held this art in so much honour, that they admired nothing more nor considered anything as a greater wonder. And then we see Alexander the Great, Demetrius, and Ptolomy, famous kings, together with many other princes, who readily boast of understanding it; and amongst the Cæsars, Augustus the divine Cæsar, Octavian Augustus, M. Agrippa, Claudius, and Caligula and Nero, in this alone virtuous, likewise Vespasian and Titus, as was shown in the famous retable of the Temple of Peace, which he built after having vanquished the Jews and their [pg 286]Jerusalem. What shall I say of the great Emperor Trajan? What of Helius Adrianus, who with his own hand painted singularly well, as the Greek Dion writes in his life, and Spartianus? Then the divine Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Julius Capitolinus, says how he learned to paint, Diognetus being his teacher; and even Ælius Lampridius relates that the Emperor Severus Alexander, who was an exceedingly powerful prince, himself painted his genealogy to show that he descended from the lineage of the Metelos. Of the great Pompey, Plutarch says that in the city of Mitylene he drew with a style the plan and shape of the theatre, in order to have it afterwards built in Rome, which he did.
"And although, owing to its great effects and beauties, noble painting merits all veneration without seeking praise from other virtues, beside those proper to it, I still wished to show here, before one who knows it, by what sort of men it was esteemed. And if by chance, at any time or in any place, there should be found any one who, because of being highly placed and great, refuses to esteem this art, let him know that others still greater appreciated it greatly. Who can compare himself with Alexander the Greek? Who will exceed the prowess of Cæsar the Roman? Who is of greater glory than Pompey? Who more a prince than Trajan? For these Alexanders and Cæsars not only dearly loved the divine painting, and paid great prices for it, but with their own hands they occupied themselves with it and touched it. Or who, out of bravery and presumption, will despise it and be not rather very humble and very unworthy before painting, before her severe and grave face?"
Thus it seemed that Lactancio was finishing, when the Marchioness proceeded, saying:
"Or who will be the virtuous and serene man (if he despises it for its sanctity) who will not show great reverence and adore the spiritual contemplation and devotion of holy [pg 287]painting? I think that time would sooner be lacking than material for the praises of this virtue. It produces joy in the melancholy, it brings both the contented and the angry man to the knowledge of human misery; it moves the obstinate to compunction, the mundane to penitence, the contemplative to contemplation, and the fearful to shame. It shows us death and what we are, more gently than in any other way; the torments and dangers of hell; so far as is possible, it represents to us the glory and peace of the blessed, and the incomprehensible image of our Lord God. It represents to us the modesty of His saints, the constancy of the martyrs, the purity of the virgins, the beauty of the angels, and the love and ardour with which the seraphim burn, better than in any other way, and lifts up our spirit and plunges our mind into the depths beyond the stars, to imagine the empirean that there exists. What shall I say of how it brings before us the worthies who passed away so long ago, and whose bones even are not now upon this earth, to enable us to imitate them in their bright deeds? Or how it shows us their councils and battles by examples and delightful histories? Their great deeds, their piety and their manners? To captains it shows the manoeuvres of the old armies, the cohorts and their disposition, their discipline and their military order. It animates and creates daring, by emulation and an honest envy of the famous ones, as Scipio the African confessed.
"It leaves a memorial of the present times for those who come after. Painting shows us the garb of the pilgrim or of antiquity, the variety of foreign peoples and nations, buildings, animals, and monsters, which in writing it would be prolix to hear about, and even then it would be but badly understood. And not only these things does this noble art, but it places before our eyes the image of any great man who should be seen and known because of his deeds, and [pg 288]likewise the beauty of a woman who is separated from us by many leagues, a thing on which Pliny reflects much. To one who dies it gives many years of life, his own face remaining behind painted, and his wife is consoled, seeing daily before her the image of her deceased husband, and the sons who were left little children rejoice when men to know the presence and the aspect of their dear father, and fear to shame him."
As the Marchioness, almost weeping, made a pause here, M. Lactancio, in order to draw her out of her sorrowful imagination and memories, said:
"Besides all these things, which are great, what is there that more ennobles or makes other things more beautiful than painting, whether on arms, in temples, in palaces, or fortresses, or anywhere else where beauty and order may have a place? And so great minds assert that there is nothing a man can find to fight against his mortality or against the flight of time but painting only. Nor did Pithagoras depart from this view when he said that only in three things were men similar to the immortal God: in science, in painting, and in music."