Lambert Lombard (The 1572 Pictorum)

engraving of Lambert Lombard

Engraving
Inscribed W.I., attributed to Johannes Wierix, 1572. 

Transcription of Inscription [Lampsonius]:

LAMBERTO LOMBARDO, LEODIENSIS PICTORI. ET ARCHITECTO.
Elogium, ex merito quod te, Lombarde, decebat,
     Non libet hîc paucis texere versiculis :
Continet hoc ea charta (legi si nostra merentur)
     De te quam fecit Λαμψονίοτε γραφίς

Translation of Inscription [Lampsonius]:

To Lambert Lombard of Liège, painter and architect
It does not please [me], Lombard, to write here in a few verses an epigraph which would be suitable to your merits.  Those pages contain it which (if our works deserve to be read) the Lampsonian pen1 wrote about you.

Footnotes:

  1. This for the Greek Λαμψονίοτε γραφίς.  Λαμψονίοτε is apparently the author’s attempt to invent a Greek adjective based on his name.  However, the form is bad Greek (better would be Λαμψονιοτὴ) and neither the author’s form nor mine will help the metre. The work by Lampsonius’s pen referred to is his biography of Lambert Lombard: Lamberti Lombardi apud Eburiones pictoris celeberrimi vita, Bruges, 1565.