A Treatise on Painting

figures, and among others those seen toward the end of the book, where there is discussion on the method of drapery panneggiare: the artistic technique of rendering the folds and flow of fabric in painting or sculpture and of dressing the figures: for the rest, use was made of those ideas and sketches by Monsieur Poussin Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), the leading painter of the French Baroque, who lived and worked primarily in Rome. which were found in the manuscript of Monsieur de Chantelou Paul Fréart de Chantelou, a French diplomat and major patron of the arts who was a close friend of Poussin.. Such is the history of this treatise. I believed that Your most Excellent Lordship would appreciate being informed of it.

Due to the similarity of the subject matter, there have been added the three books on painting by Leon Battista Alberti A 15th-century humanist, architect, and principal theorist of Renaissance art., and the treatise on the statue Original: "trattato della statua," referring to Alberti's De Statua. by the same author, which was no longer to be found, having never been printed except for a single time. Vasari Giorgio Vasari, whose 1550/1568 book "The Lives of the Artists" is the foundational text of art history. previously wrote the lives of both authors, but because he omitted many things worthy of observation, I have set out to write them anew, adding what my reading of books and the knowledge I have acquired of Italian matters have suggested to me. I have written in the Italian language because, knowing enough of it to be understood, it seemed to me that the nature of the work Meaning the accompanying text by Leonardo da Vinci. required it so.

If at another time I have the occasion to speak Latin or French, perhaps I will succeed better, and will be able to explain my concepts more happily. Meanwhile, I beseech Your most Excellent Lordship to be my protector, and to offer my writings that help which they perhaps could not hope for from their author, manifesting the superabundance of your love in the multitude of my defects. And I kiss your hands a thousand times.