What remains is his own genuine observation, illustrated with examples of women and girls from Prato.As his little work is a kind of lecture, delivered before the women of this city--that is to say, before very severe critics--he must have kept pretty closely to the truth.His principle is avowedly that of Zeuxis and of Lucian--to piece together an ideal beauty out of a number of beautiful parts.He defines the shades of color which occur in the hair and skin, and gives to the 'biondo' the preference, as the most beautiful color for the hair, understanding by it a soft yellow, inclining to brown.He requires that the hair should be thick, long, and locky; the forehead serene, and twice as broad as high; the skin bright and clear (candida), but not of a dead white (bianchezza); the eyebrows dark, silky, most strongly marked in the middle, and shading off towards the ears and the nose;the white of the eye faintly touched with blue, the iris not actually black, though all the poets praise 'occhi neri' as a gift of Venus, despite that even goddesses were known for their eyes of heavenly blue, and that soft, joyous, brown eyes were admired by everybody.The eye itself should be large and full and brought well forward; the lids white, and marked with almost invisible tiny red veins; the lashes neither too long, nor too thick, nor too dark.The hollow round the eye should have the same color as the cheek.The ear, neither too large nor too small, firmly and neatly fitted on, should show a stronger color in the winding than in the even parts, with an edge of the transparent ruddiness of the pomegranate.The temples must be white and even, and for the most perfect beauty ought not to be too narrow.The red should grow deeper as the cheek gets rounder.The nose, which chiefly determines the value of the profile, must recede gently and uniformly in the direction of the eyes; where the cartilage ceases, there may be a slight elevation, but not so marked as to make the nose aquiline, which is not pleasing in women; the lower part must be less strongly colored than the ears, but not of a chilly whiteness, and the middle partition above the lips lightly tinted with red.The mouth, our author would have rather small, and neither projecting to a point, nor quite flat, with the lips not too thin, and fitting neatly together; an accidental opening, that is, when the woman is neither speaking nor laughing, should not display more than six upper teeth.As delicacies of detail, he mentions a dimple in the upper lip, a certain fullness of the under lip, and a tempting smile in the left corner of the mouth--and so on.The teeth should not be too small, regular, well marked off from one another, and of the color of ivory; and the gums must not be too dark or even like red velvet.The chin is to be round, neither pointed nor curved outwards, and growing slightly red as it rises; its glory is the dimple.The neck should be white and round and rather long than short, with the hollow and the Adam's apple but faintly marked;and the skin at every movement must show pleasing lines.The shoulders he desires broad, and in the breadth of the bosom sees the first condition of its beauty.No bone may be visible upon it, its fall and swell must be gentle and gradual, its color 'candidissimo.' The leg should be long and not too hard in the lower parts, but still not without flesh on the shin, which must be provided with white, full calves.He likes the foot small, but not bony, the instep (it seems)high, and the color white as alaba
第105章 The Revival of Antiquity Introductory (55)（1 / 3）