If his judgment appears less accurate on some artists of a different school, he ought not, on that account, to be taxed with malignity and envy, as is well observed by Lomazzo. He has protested that he has done his best to adhere to truth, or to what he believed to be true,[196] and it is sufficient to read him without prejudice to give him credit for such justification. He seems a man who writes as he thinks. Thus, he bestows commendations upon Baldinelli and upon Zuccaro, his enemies,[197] as well as upon his friends: he distributes censure and praise with an equal hand to Tuscan and other artists. If he discovers painters of little merit in other schools, he finds them also in that of Florence; if he relates the jealousies of foreign artists, he does not conceal those of the Florentines, of which he speaks with a playful freedom in the Life of Donatello, in his own, and more especially in that of Pietro Perugino. His partial criticisms therefore on certain artists arose less from his nationality, than from other causes. It is certain that he saw but little of some masters; his opinion of others was formed upon incorrect information; and he could not attain the same certainty that we now boast, on what related to a number of artists then living, who, as usually happens, were then more censured than admired. Some allowance too should be made for his other avocations; by the multiplicity of which he doubtless wrote as he painted, with the expedition of his mode of practice. A proof of this is afforded by the repetitions that occur, as we have before observed, in successive passages, and the contradictory characters he sometimes gives of the same picture, pronouncing it good in one sentence, and in another allowing it scarcely the praise of mediocrity. This was particularly the case in regard to Razzi, towards whom he seems to have entertained ill will; arising, however, more from the bad reputation of the man than from prejudice against the school of the artist. For the incorrectness of such censures, in which he, however, was sincere, I blame his maxims of art, and the age in which he lived. He reckoned Bonarruoti the greatest painter that had ever existed;[198] and exalted him above the ancient Greeks,[199] and, from his practice, held a bold and vigorous design as the summit of perfection in painting; compared to which, beauty and colouring were nothing.[200] From such fundamental principles proceeded some of his obnoxious criticisms on Bassano, Tiziano, and on Raffaello himself. But is this the effect of his malignity, or of his education? Does it not happen in philosophy as in painting, that every one gives a decided preference to those of his own sect. Has not Petrarca generalized the observation, when he asks, ----"Or che è questo Che ognun del suo saper par che si appaghi?"