Laudator Temporis Acti

Erasmus, Adages I vi 16 (tr. R.A.B. Mynors, with his notes):

Ne sutor ultra crepidam
Let the cobbler stick to his last

Close to this is Ne sutor ultra crepidam, Let the cobbler stick to his last — let no one, that is, attempt to judge of matters which are far removed from his own skill and calling. This adage took its rise from Apelles, the famous painter, of whom Pliny,¹ book 35 chapter 10, tells the following story: 'When his work was finished, he would expose it in the porch to the view of passers-by, hiding behind the picture to listen to their comments on its faults, because he thought the public a more strict critic than himself; and they say that he was criticized by a cobbler for painting one loop too few on the inner side of a pair of sandals. Next day, finding his criticism had been attended to, the man went proudly on to criticize the drawing of a leg; and Apelles looked out indignantly and told him when passing judgment to stick to his last. These words became proverbial.' So much for Pliny. There is a similar story in Athenaeus:² Stratonicus the lyre-player said to a smith who was arguing with him about music 'Can't you see that you're not sticking to your hammer?' His nephew's³ remark in his Letters points the same way, that no one can judge a work of art properly unless he too is an artist. And Aristotle's⁴ saying in the first book of the Ethics that everyone is a proper judge of the things he knows about. Also what he wrote in the second book of the Physics of a blind man disputing about colours — words which have become proverbial among academics of our own day for disputing on subjects of which a man knows nothing. To the same opinion we may refer what Fabius Pictor⁵ says in Quintilian, that the arts would be fortunate if none but artists were their critics.

Collectanea no 153 gave the first Pliny quotation only, with one divergence from the true text which is now corrected, so that Erasmus probably went back to the original when compiling the Chiliades. Otto 462; Suringar 142; Tilley c 480 Let not the cobbler go beyond his last.

1 Pliny] Naturalis historia 35.85

2 Athenaeus] 8.351a, added in 1533, so that 'his nephew' in the next sentence refers back to Pliny.

3 His nephew's] Pliny the Younger Letters 1.10.4

4 Aristotle] Ethica Nicomachea 1.3 (1094b27); Physica 2.1 (192a7). The words 'of our own day' were added in 1515. Cf Tilley M 80 A blind man should judge no colours.

5 Fabius Pictor] The early Roman annalist, whose works are lost, must owe his presence here to some confusion. The quotation comes from Jerome Letters 66.9.2, who ascribes it to Fabius, by which he must mean not the annalist but Quintilian (Fabius Quintilianus), just as Erasmus so often does. In Jerome's Comm. in Esaiam, in the prologue to book 16, he gives it to 'the eminent stylist,' which points the same way. Possibly an echo of Quintilian 12.10.50; no one seems to have found any other source.

Erasmus in his Latin:

Ne sutor ultra crepidam

Huic finitimum est illud Ne sutor ultra crepidam, id est Ne quis de his judicare conetur, quae sint ab ipsius arte professioneque aliena. Quod quidem adagium natum est ab Apelle, nobilissimo pictore. De quo Plinius libro XXXV cap. X scribit in hunc modum: Idem perfecta opera proponebat in pergula transeuntibus atque post ipsam tabulam latens vitia, quae notarentur, auscultabat, vulgum diligentiorem judicem quam se praeferens. Feruntque a sutore reprehensum, quod in crepidis una intus pauciores fecisset ansas. Eodem postero die superbe ob emendationem pristinae admonitionis cavillante circa crus, indignatum prospexisse, denuntiantem, ne supra crepidam sutor judicaret. Quod et ipsum in proverbium venit. Hactenus Plinius. Huic simillimum est, quod refert Athenaeus: Stratonicus citharoedus fabro secum de musica contendenti, Non sentis, inquit, te ultra malleum loqui? Eodem pertinet, quod hujus nepos in epistolis scripsit de artificio non recte judicare quemquam, nisi et ipsum artificem. Quodque primo Moralium libro dixit Aristoteles earum rerum unumquemque judicem esse idoneum, quarum sit eruditus. Et quod idem scripsit libro secundo Naturalium caecum disputare de coloribus. Quae verba jam inter nostri temporis scholasticos in proverbium abierunt, quoties quispiam de rebus ignotis disputat. Ad eandem sententiam referendum, quod ait Fabius Pictor apud Quintilianum felices futuras artes, si soli artifices de iis judicarent.

See also Renzo Tosi, Dictionnaire des sentences latines et grecques, tr. Rebecca Lenoir (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 2010), #1600, pp. 1179-1180.

American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd ed.:

last³ (lăst) n. A block or form shaped like a human foot and used in making or repairing shoes.

Related post: Sutor Ne Ultra Crepidam.