Now it is true that greatness in the arts springs in one man from diligence, in another from study, in this man from imitation, in that man from knowledge of the sciences, which all render assistance to the arts, and in some from all the aforesaid sources together, or from the greater part of them; yet I, none the less, having discoursed sufficiently, in the Lives of the individuals, of their methods of art, their manners, and the causes of their good, better, and best work, will discourse of this matter in general terms, and rather of the characteristics of times than of persons; having made a distinction and division, in order not to make too minute a research, into Three Parts, or we would rather call them ages, from the second birth of these arts up to the century wherein we live, by reason of that very manifest difference that is seen between one and another of them. In the first and most ancient age these three arts are seen to have been very distant from their perfection, and, although they had something of the good, to have been accompanied by so great imperfection that they certainly do not merit too great praise; although, seeing that they gave a beginning and showed the path and method to the better work that followed later, if for no other reason, we cannot but speak well of them and give them a little more glory than the works themselves have merited, were we to judge them by the perfect standard of art. Next, in the second, it is manifestly seen that matters were much improved, both in the inventions and in the use of more design, better manner, and greater diligence, in their execution; and likewise that the rust of age and the rudeness and disproportion, wherewith the grossness of that time had clothed them, were swept away. But who will be bold enough to say that there was to be found at that time one who was in every way perfect, and who brought his work, whether in invention, or design, or colouring, to the standard of to-day, and contrived the sweet gradation of his figures with the deep shades of colour, in a manner that the lights remained only on the parts in relief, and likewise contrived those perforations and certain extraordinary refinements in marble statuary that are seen in the statues of to-day? The credit of this is certainly due to the third age, wherein it appears to me that I can say surely that art has done everything that it is possible for her, as an imitator of nature, to do, and that she has climbed so high that she has rather to fear a fall to a lower height than to ever hope for more advancement.