Note 17 — BOOK III.
Thomas Roscoe translation
If there be any truth in Pietro having been blind for twenty-four years, I do not know how he could have painted Sixtus IV. On the other hand this tradition of his blindness comes from Vasari, whose family was so intimately connected with that of Pietro della Francesca, that there was less room for error in the life of that artist than in any other. This excellent picture, of which I have seen a beautiful copy in the possession of the Duke di Ceri, I should myself rather attribute to Melozzo.