And indeed, since this effort of learning may seem perhaps too tiring to the young, for this reason I consider, at this point, that one must show how much painting, in which we employ every care and diligence, is not unworthy. In fact, painting certainly has in itself a truly divine power, not only because, as they say of friendship, a painting lets the absent be present, but also because it shows [to] the living, after long centuries, the dead, so that [these] become recognized with the artist's great admiration and the viewers' pleasure. Plutarch(1) reports that Cassandrus, one of Alexander's generals, trembled with [his] whole body because he saw a portrait of Alexander already deceased, in which he recognized the majesty of his king, and that [the] Lacedaemonian Agesilaus, because he knew that he was completely deformed, had refused to make known to posterity his image, and that for this reason he had wished neither to be portrayed nor modeled by anyone.(2) Therefore, the faces of the dead, thanks to painting, have in a certain way a very long life. That painting, in truth, has described the gods, which the people worship, one must consider it as the greatest gift bestowed upon mortals. Painting, in fact, has been enormously useful to religious sentiment – through which we are joined in a particular way to the gods – and to preserve minds with a certain intact devotion.