Treatise on the Art of Painting

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SAINT MARK, VENICE

of your royal thoughts, to the public good, and to the health of the people, committed by divine power to your care and government. From this, it follows that in all your actions, Your Highness always works with such regard for every circumstance of place, time, and person: which is that decorum|The Renaissance concept of 'decorum' (propriety) meant that every element of an artwork or a social action must be appropriate to the subject, setting, and status of the individuals involved., which above all things, like a celestial frieze, adorns human actions. In Your Highness are discovered various and most splendid colors of heroic virtues; your most rare comportments shed an eternal light. The perspective of your providence is most sharp; which, looking with such straight lines at the three parts of time A reference to the past, present, and future—the hallmark of a wise ruler., produces marvelous effects. And from all these things results in Your Highness a harmony equal in proportion to that which the great African Scipio Africanus the Younger, who appears in the "Dream of Scipio" at the end of Cicero’s On the Republic (De Re Publica). heard in the heavens in the writings of Cicero; indeed, superior in such a way that it can truly be called a harmony proceeding from the very breath of the Holy Spirit.

But without doubt, my gift is too small for so great a Prince. Despite this, because it comes from a person who cannot give you anything greater, and is born from a most ardent desire to honor Your Highness as much as you deserve, I hope that you will not only not despise it, but will be greatly pleased by it; in imitation of blessed God, who welcomes small offerings due to the great devotion of those who intend to honor Him with them. I humbly beseech you, therefore, to deign to receive it gratefully; and wishing you continual prosperity and exaltation, with all submission and reverence, I kiss your most serene hands.

From Milan, the 23rd of June, the year 1584.

Of Your Highness,

catchword: Beloved