PART FOUR

Of draperies and the manner of dressing figures with grace, and of garments and the natures of cloths. Book One.

[529] 1. Of the cloths that dress figures.
The cloths that dress figures must show themselves to be inhabited by those figures. With a brief encompassing, show the attitude and motion of such a figure, and avoid the confusion of many folds, above all over the raised and lit parts, so that they may be recognized.

[530] 2. Of the broken or firm manners of the cloths that dress figures.
The cloths that dress figures must have their folds firm or broken according to the quality of the cloth, thin or thick, that you wish to represent; and you may use both sorts in the compositions of your narrative scenes, so as to satisfy diverse judgements.

[531] 3. Of dressing figures with grace.
Use in your draperies that part which surrounds the figure so that it shows the manner of its attitude, and those parts that remain outside it, adorn in a flying and scattered fashion, as will be told.

[532] 4. Of the cloths that dress figures, and their folds.
The cloths that dress figures must have their folds fitted to gird the limbs they clothe, in such a way that on the illuminated parts no folds of dark shadow are set, and on the shadowed parts no folds of too much brightness are made; and that the lineaments of these folds go, in some part, encircling the limbs they cover, and not with lineaments that cut across the limbs, nor with shadows that sink deeper in than is the surface...