Nor can I find, that the keeper of the temple of peace at Rome, though possessed of the register of the pictures there, pretended to monopolize remarks and criticisms upon them; Pliny having described most of them.
Publica materies privati juris sit—
Hor.
’Tis to be wished, that, roused by a Pamphilus and an Apelles, artists would take up the pen themselves, in order to discover the mysteries of the art to those that know how to use them,
Ma di costor’, che à lavorar s’accingono,
Quattro quinti, per Dio, non sanno leggere.
Salvator Rosa, Sat. III.
Two or three of these are to be commended; the rest contented themselves with giving some historical accounts of the fraternity. But what could appear more auspicious to the improvement of the art, even by the remotest posterity, than the work attempted by the united forces of the celebrated Pietro da Cortona[42] and Padre Ottonelli? Nevertheless this same treatise, except only a few historical remarks, and these too to be met with in an hundred books, seems good for nothing, but
Ne scombris tunicæ desint, piperique cuculli.