"Now amongst the worthy painters who excelled herein, Raph. Urbine
was not the least who performed his workes with a divine kind of
maiesty; neither was Polidore"--[Polidoro Caldara da Caravaggio]--
"much behind him in his kinde, whose pictures seemed as it were
passing furious; nor yet Andreas Mantegna, whose vaine showed a very
laborious curiositie; nor yet Leonard Vincent"--[Leonardo da Vinci]--
"in whose doings there was never any error found in this point.
Wherof amongst all other of his works, that admirable last supper of
Christ in Refect. S. Maria de Gratia in Milane maketh most evident
proofe, in which he hath so lively expressed the passions of the
Apostles mindes in their countenances and the rest of their bodies,
that a man may boldly say the truth was nothing superior to his
representation, and neede not be afraide to reckon it among the best
works of oyle-painting (of which kind of painting John de Bruges was
the first inventor). For in those Apostles you might distinctly
perceive admiration, feare, griefe, suspition, love, &c.; all which
were sometimes to be seen together in one of them, and finally in
Judas a treason-plotting countenance, as it were the very true
counterfiet of a traitor. So that therein he has left a sufficient
argument of his rare perfection, in the true understanding of the
passions of the mind exemplified outwardly in the bodie. Which
because it is the most necessary part of painting, I purpose (as I
say) to handle in this present booke. I may not omit Mi. Angelo in
any case, whose skill and painfulnesse in this point was so greate,
that his pictures carry with them more hard motions expressed after
an unusual manner, but all of them tending to a certaine bould
stoutnesse. And as for Titian, he hath worthely purchased the name
of a great painter in this matter, as his pictures do sufficiently
witness; in each whereof there shineth a certain mooving vertue,