there may be seen some as ancient as the most ancient sculptures that are in Rome, and that they used to be made of jewels and fine stones. And as for their small or smaller number, they declare that this is not because the art calls for a better habit of body and greater judgment, but that it depends wholly on the poverty of their resources and on the little favour, or avarice, as we would rather call it, of rich men, who give them no supply of marble and no opportunity to work; in contrast with what may be believed, nay, seen to have happened in ancient times, when sculpture rose to its greatest height. Indeed, it is manifest that he who cannot use and waste a small quantity of marble and hard stone, which are very costly, cannot have that practice in the art that is essential; he who does not practise does not learn it; and he who does not learn it can do no good. Wherefore they should rather excuse with these arguments the imperfection and the small number of their masters, than seek to deduce nobility from them under false colours. As for the higher prices of sculptures, they answer that, although theirs might be much less, they have not to share them, being content with a boy who grinds their colours and hands them their brushes or their cheap stools, whereas the sculptors, besides the great cost of their material, require many aids and spend more time on one single figure than they themselves do on very many; wherefore their prices appear to come from the quality and the durability of the material itself, from the aids that it requires for its completion, and from the time that is taken in working it, rather than from the excellence of the art itself. And although that does not suffice and no greater price is found, as would be easily seen by anyone who were willing to consider it diligently, let them find a greater price than the marvellous, beautiful, and living gift that Alexander the Great made in return for the most splendid and excellent work of Apelles, bestowing on him, not vast treasures or high estate, but his own beloved and most beautiful Campaspe; let them observe, in addition, that Alexander was young, enamoured of her, and naturally subject to the passions of love, and also both a King and a Greek; and then, from this, let them draw what conclusion they please. As for the loves of Pygmalion and of those other rascals no more worthy to be men, cited as proof of the nobility of the art, they know not what to answer, if, from a very great blindness of intellect and from a licentiousness unbridled beyond all natural bounds, there can be made a proof of nobility. As for the man, whosoever he was, alleged by the sculptors to have made sculpture of gold and painting of silver, they are agreed that if he had given as much sign of judgment as of wealth, there would be no disputing it; and finally, they conclude that the ancient Golden Fleece, however celebrated it may be, none the less covered nothing but an