Treatise on the Art of Painting

By Sir Gherardo Borgogni.

You, already with your works divine and fair,
Giving life to wooden panels and to colors, original: "legni" (woods). This refers to the poplar panels commonly used as supports for paintings in Renaissance Italy.
Rose glorious to the highest honors,
To walk as an equal with Zeuxis and Apelles. Zeuxis and Apelles were the most famous painters of ancient Greece. In the Renaissance, comparing a contemporary artist to them was the highest possible compliment.
Now, so that everyone sings and speaks of you,
You reveal soul-stirring treasures in living pages;
And as a faithful guide to the most worthy Painters,
You travel with your name to this region and that.
If double praise is due for twin-fold worth,
O wise Painter; who could reach the mark,
So high and sublime, of your great merits?
You wield the brush among the rarest masters, and you live
Within your work; nor shall the passing of the hours
Take away the first glories of your talent.

By Sir Giovanni Filippo Gherardini.

He saw, and he painted: and no age
Ever possessed works of the brush more rare.
Blind, he then wrote pages so prized and dear,
That one can no longer hope for more.
His hand then gave life to stones and to wood;
And made art triumph over nature:
Now anyone who pays heed here is amazed
At how loftily his style teaches this.
But however much a great desire pricks another,
I fear they shall not reach such a goal,
Unless they saw then, and painted alongside him,
And who now contemplates with him, and writes while blind. This concludes the common Renaissance trope that only a practitioner who has "seen" the secrets of art can truly write about them, even if—like Lomazzo—they have lost their physical sight.