“Then whom,” said the Count, “would you say Petrarch and Boccaccio imitated, who were on earth only three days since, one may say?”
“I know not,” replied messer Federico; “but we may believe that even their minds were directed to imitation, although we do not know of whom.”
The Count replied:
“We may believe that they who were imitated, surpassed those who imitated them; and if they were admirable, it would be too great a marvel that their name and fame should be so soon extinguished. But I believe that their real master was aptitude and their own native judgment; and at this there is no one who ought to wonder, since nearly always the summit of every excellence may be approached by diverse roads. Nor is there anything that has not in it many things of the same sort which are dissimilar and yet intrinsically deserving of equal praise.
“Consider music, the harmonies of which are now grave and slow, now very fast and of novel moods and means; yet all give pleasure, albeit for different reasons: as is seen in Bidon’s[[94]] manner of singing, which is so skilful, ready, vehement, fervid, and of such varied melodies, that the listener’s spirits are moved and inflamed, and thus entranced seem to be lifted up to heaven. Nor does our friend Marchetto Cara[[95]] move us less by his singing, but with a gentler harmony; because he softens and penetrates our souls by placid means and full of plaintive sweetness, gently stirring them to sweet emotion.
“Again, various things give equal pleasure to our eyes, so that we can with difficulty decide which are more pleasing to them. You know that in painting Leonardo da Vinci,[[96]] Mantegna,[[97]] Raphael,[[98]] Michelangelo, [[99]] Giorgio da Castelfranco,[[100]] are very excellent, yet they are all unlike in their work; so that no one of them seems to lack anything in his own manner, since each is known as most perfect in his style.
ANGELO AMBROGINI
POLIZIANO
1454-1494
Reduced from Anderson’s photograph (no. 8148) of a part of the fresco, “Zacharias in the Temple,” in the Church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence, by Domenico Bigordi, better known as Ghirlandajo, (1449-1494).
“It is the same with many Greek and Latin poets, who, although different in their writing, are equal in their fame. The orators, too, have always had so much diversity among themselves, that almost every age has produced and prized a type of orator peculiar to its own time; and these have been different not only from their predecessors and successors, but from one another: as it is written of Isocrates, Lysias, Æschines,[[101]] and many others among the Greeks,—all excellent, yet each resembling no one but himself. So, among the Latins, Carbo, Lælius, Scipio Africanus, Galba, Sulpicius, Cotta, Gracchus, Marcus Antonius, Crassus,[[102]] and so many others that it would be tedious to name them,—all good and very different one from another; so that if a man were able to consider all the orators that have been in the world, he would find as many kinds of oratory as of orators. I think I remember too that Cicero in a certain place[[103]] makes Marcus Antonius say to Sulpicius that there are many who imitate no man and yet arrive at the highest pitch of excellence; and he speaks of certain ones who had introduced a new form and figure of speech, beautiful but not usual among the orators of that time, wherein they imitated no one but themselves. For that reason he affirms also that masters ought to consider the pupils’ nature, and taking this as guide ought to direct and aid them to the path towards which their aptitude and natural disposition incline them. Hence I believe, dear messer Federico, that if a man has no innate affinity for any particular author, it is not well to force him to imitate, because the vigour[[104]] of his faculty languishes and is impeded when turned from the channel in which it would have made progress had that channel not been barred.