Vasari suggests that Michelangelo 's 'new kind of imitation' meant that artists were no longer mere craftsmen but almost divine in their insights into the God-given form of things. In language reminiscent of Plotinus and the neo-Platonists who had helped to define the 'court' culture of the Medici in Florence, Vasari writes in the Preface to the Lives that 'the Master who taught us was that divine light infused in us by a special act of grace, which has not only made us superior to other animals, but even similar, if it is permitted to say so to God himself' ( Vasari, Le Vite, Testo II.3 and Vasari, Le Vite, Testo II.11) In the Preface to Part Three of the Lives the 'divine' Michelangelo triumphs over the 'ancients' as well as modern artists by the 'power of his most divine intellect' he was able to 'comprehend' the form of everything. It was the highest kind of understanding which many call 'intelligenza' (see Vasari, Le Vite, Testo VI.3 and Vasari on Michelangelo).