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the
HISTORY OF PAINTING
in
ITALY.



the
HISTORY OF PAINTING
in
ITALY,

from the period of the revival of
THE FINE ARTS
to the end of the eighteenth century:

translated
From the Original Italian
of the
ABATE LUIGI LANZI.

By THOMAS ROSCOE.

IN SIX VOLUMES.

VOL. V.
CONTAINING THE SCHOOLS OF BOLOGNA, FERRARA, GENOA, AND PIEDMONT.

LONDON:
printed for
W. SIMPKIN AND R. MARSHALL,
stationers'-hall court, ludgate street.

1828.

J. M'Creery, Tooks Court,
Chancery Lane, London.

CONTENTS

of

THE FIFTH VOLUME.

HISTORY OF PAINTING IN UPPER ITALY.

During the progress of the present work, it has been observed that the fame of the art, in common with that of letters and of arms, has been transferred from place to place; and that wherever it fixed its seat, its influence tended to the perfection of some branch of painting, which by preceding artists had been less studied, or less understood. Towards the close of the sixteenth century, indeed, there seemed not to be left in nature, any kind of beauty, in its outward forms or aspect, that had not been admired and represented by some great master; insomuch that the artist, however ambitious, was compelled, as an imitator of nature, to become, likewise, an imitator of the best masters; while the discovery of new styles depended upon a more or less skilful combination of the old. Thus the sole career that remained open for the display of human genius was that of imitation; as it appeared impossible to design figures more masterly than those of Bonarruoti or Da Vinci, to express them with more grace than Raffaello, with more animated colours than those of Titian, with more lively motions than those of Tintoretto, or to give them a richer drapery and ornaments than Paul Veronese; to present them to the eye at every degree of distance, and in perspective, with more art, more fulness, and more enchanting power than fell to the genius of Coreggio. Accordingly the path of imitation was at that time pursued by every school, though with very little method. Each of these was almost wholly subservient to its prototype; nor was it distinguished in any other portion of the art than that by which its master had surpassed all competitors. Even in this portion, the distinction of these followers consisted only in copying the same figures, and executing them in a more hasty and capricious manner, or at all events, in adapting them out of place. Those devoted to Raffaello were sure to exaggerate the ideal in every picture: the same in regard to anatomy in those of Michelangiolo: while misplaced vivacity and foreshortening were repeated in the most judicious historic pieces of the Venetians and the Lombards.

A few, indeed, there were, as we have noticed, in every place, who rose conspicuous above those popular prejudices and that ignorance which obscured Italy, and whose aim was to select from the masters of different states the chief merit of each; a method of which the Campi of Cremona more especially furnished commendable examples. Yet these artists being unequal in point of genius and learning, broken into different schools, separated by private interests, accustomed to direct their pupils only in the exact path they themselves trod, and always confined within the limits of their native province, failed to instruct Italy, or at least to propagate the method of correct and laudable imitation. This honour was reserved for Bologna, whose destiny was declared to be the art of teaching, as governing was said to be that of Rome; and it was not the work of an academy, but of a single house. Gifted with genius, intent upon attaining the secrets more than the stipends of their art, and unanimous in their resolves, the family of the Caracci discovered the true style of imitation. First, they inculcated it through the neighbouring state of Romagna, whence it was communicated to the rest of Italy; so that in a little while nearly the whole country was filled with its reputation. The result of their learning went to shew that the artist ought to divide his studies between nature and art, and that he should alternately keep each in view, selecting only, according to his natural talents and disposition, what was most enviable in both. By such means, that school, which appeared last in the series that flourished, became the first to instruct the age; and what it had acquired from each it afterwards taught to all: a school which, until that period, had assumed no form or character to distinguish it from others, but which subsequently produced almost as many new manners, as the individuals of the family and their pupils. The mind, like the pen, would gladly arrive at that fortunate epoch; aiming at the most compendious ways to reach it, and studiously avoiding whatever may impede or divert its course. Let Malvasia exclaim against Vasari as much as he pleases: let him vent his indignation upon his prints, in which Bagnacavallo appears with a goat's physiognomy, when he was entitled to that of a gentleman: let him farther vituperate his writings, in which Bolognese professors are either omitted, dismissed with faint praise, or blamed, until one Mastro Amico and one Mastro Biagio fall under his lash:—to attempt to reconcile or to aggravate such feuds will form little part of my task. Concerning this author I have sufficiently treated in other places; though I shall not scruple to correct, or to supply his information in case oaf need, on the authority of several modern writers.[1] Nor shall I fail to point out in Malvasia occasional errors in sound criticism, which seem to have escaped him in the effervescence of that bitter controversy. The reader will become aware of them even in the first epoch; in treating which, agreeably to my own method, I shall describe the origin and early progress of this eminent school. Together with the Bolognese, I shall also give an account of many professors of Romagna, reserving a few, however, for a place in the Ferrarese School, in which they shone either as disciples or as masters.

[1] No Italian school has been described by abler pens. The Co. Canon. Malvasia was a real man of letters; and his life has been written by Crespi. His two volumes, entitled Felsina Pittrice, will continue to supply an[TN1] abundance of valuable information, collected by the pupils of the Caracci, to whom he was known, and by whom he was assisted in this work; charged, however, with a degree of patriotic zeal at times too fervid.

Crespi and Zanotti were his continuators, whose merits are considered in the last epoch. To these volumes is added the work entitled, "Pitture, Sculture, e Architetture di Bologna," of which the latest editions have been supplied with some very valuable notices, (drawn also from MSS.) by the Ab. Bianconi, already commended by us, and by Sig. Marcello Oretti, a very diligent collector of pictoric anecdotes, as well as by other persons. I cite this work under the title of the Guide of Bologna; in addition to which I mention in Romagna that of Ravenna by Beltrami, that of Rimini by Costa, and of Pesaro by Becci, which is farther illustrated by observations upon the chief paintings at Pesaro, and a dissertation upon the art; both very ably treated by the pen of Sig. Canon. Lazzarini.

The new Guide of Bologna, published in the year 1782, directs our attention to a number of figures, in particular those of the Virgin, which, on the strength of ancient documents, are to be assigned to ages anterior to the twelfth century. Of some of these we find the authors' names indicated; and it forms, perhaps, the peculiar boast of Bologna to claim three of them during the twelfth century: one Guido, one Ventura, and one Ursone, of whom there exist memorials as late back as 1248. Most part, however, are from unknown hands, and so well executed, that we are justified in suspecting that they must have been retouched about the times of Lippo Dalmasio, to whose style a few of them bear considerable resemblance. Yet not so with others; more especially a specimen in San Pietro, which I consider to be one of the most ancient preserved in Italy. But the finest monument of painting possessed by Bologna, at once the most unique and untouched, is the Catino of San Stefano, on which is figured the Adoration of the Lamb of God, described in the Apocalypse; and below this are several scriptural histories; as the Birth of our Lord, his Epiphany, the Dispute, and similar subjects. The author was either Greek, or rather a scholar of those Greeks who ornamented the church of St. Mark in Venice with their mosaics; the manner much resembling theirs in its rude design, the spareness of the limbs, and in the distribution of the colours. It is besides, certain, that these Greeks educated several artists for Italy, and among others the founder of the Ferrarese School, of whom more in its appropriate place. However this may be, the painter exhibits traces that differ from those mosaic workers, such as the flow of the beard, the shape of the garments, and a taste less bent on thronging his compositions. And in respect to his age, it is apparent it must have been between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, from the form of the characters, collated with other writings belonging to the same period.

Entering upon the age of Giotto, the most disputed of all, on account of the Florentines having declared themselves the tutors of the Bolognese, and the aversion of the latter to admit that they have been instructed by the Florentines;—I decline to dwell upon their writings, in which the heat of controversy has effectually obscured the candour of real history. I shall rather gather light from the figures of the trecentisti dispersed throughout the city and all parts of Romagna, and from the ample collections which are to be seen in various places. Such is that of the Padri Classensi at Ravenna, that of the Institute at Bologna, and in the same place one at the Malvezzi palace, where the pictures of the ancient masters are exhibited in long series, with their names; not always inscribed, indeed, in ancient character, nor always equally genuine; but still calculated to reflect honour upon the noble family that made the collection. In all these I discovered paintings, some manifestly Greek; some indisputably Giottesque; certain others of Venetian style; and not a few in a manner which I never saw, except in Bologna. They possess a body of colouring, a taste in perspective, a method of designing and draping the figures, not met with in any other cities; as for instance, in several places I saw scripture histories, where the Redeemer invariably appears arrayed in a red mantle; while other characters appear in garments trimmed in a certain novel style with gilt borders; trifles in themselves, yet not apparent in any other school. From similar observations we seem to be justified in concluding that the Bolognese of that age likewise had a school of their own, not indeed so elegant, nor so celebrated, but nevertheless peculiar, and so to say, municipal, derived from ancient masters of mosaic, and also from those in miniature.

On this head, notwithstanding our proposed brevity, I must here refer to the words of Baldinucci in his notices of the miniature painter, Franco: "After Giotto, that very celebrated Florentine painter, had discovered his novel and fine method by which he gained the name of the first restorer of the art of painting, or rather to have raised it from utter extinction; and after he had acquired with industrious diligence that fine mode of painting which is called di minio,[2] which for the most part consists in colouring very diminutive figures; many others also applied themselves to the like art, and soon became illustrious. One of these was Oderigi d'Agubbio, concerning whom we have spoken in his proper place among the disciples of Cimabue. We discovered that this Oderigi, as we are assured by Vellutello in his comment upon Dante, in the eleventh canto of the Purgatorio,[3] was master in the art to Franco Bolognese, which assertion acquires great credit from his having worked much in miniature in the city of Bologna, according to these words that I find said of him by Benvenuto da Imola, a contemporary of Petrarch, in his comment upon Dante: 'Iste Odorisius fuit magnus miniator in civitate Bononiæ, qui erat valde vanus jactator artis suæ.' From this Franco, according to the opinion of Malvasia, the most noble and ever glorious city of Bologna received the first seeds of the beautiful art of painting."

With this narrative does the author proceed, like a careful culturist, gently sprinkling with refreshing drops his pictoric tree, whose seed he had shortly before planted, in order to trace the whole derivation of early artists from the leading stock of Cimabue. It has elsewhere been observed that this famous tree can boast no root in history; that it sprung out of idle conjectures, put together as an answer to the Felsina Pittrice of Malvasia, in which the Bolognese School is made to appear, as it were, autoctona, derived only from itself. Now Baldinucci, in order to give its origin to Florence, would persuade us that Oderigi, a miniaturist, and master of Franco, the first painter at Bologna on the revival of the arts, had actually been a disciple of Cimabue. His argument amounts to this: that Dante, Giotto, and Oderigi, being known to have lived on the most intimate terms together, and all three greatly devoted to the fine arts, must have contracted their friendship in the school of Cimabue; as if such an intimacy might not have sprung up at any other time or place amongst three men who travelled. It is besides difficult to believe that Oderigi, ambitious of the fame of a miniaturist in ornamenting books, should have applied to Cimabue, who in those times was not the best designer of figures, though the most eminent painter in fresco, and of grand figures.

A more probable supposition, therefore, is that Oderigi acquired the art from the miniaturists, who then greatly abounded in Italy, and carried it to further perfection by his own design. Neither are the epochs themselves, fixed upon by Baldinucci, in favour of his system. He would have it that Giotto, at ten years of age, being about the year 1286, began to design in the school of Cimabue, when the latter had attained his forty-sixth year; nor could Oderigi have been any younger, whose death happened about 1299, one year before that of Cimabue, his equal in reputation, and in the dignity of the pupil, who already surpassed the master. How difficult then to persuade ourselves that a genius, described by Dante as lofty and full of vaunting, should demean himself by deigning to design at the school of a contemporary, near the seat of a mere child; and subsequently surviving only thirteen years, should acquire the fame of the first miniaturist of his age, besides forming the mind of a pupil superior to himself. It is no less incredible that Oderigi, after having seen Giotto's specimens in miniature, "should in a short time become famous." Giotto, in 1298, when twenty-two years of age, was at Rome in the service of the pope; where, observes Baldinucci, he also illuminated a book for the Car. Stefaneschi; a circumstance not mentioned by Vasari, nor supported by any historical document. Yet taking all this for granted, what length of time is afforded for Oderigi to display his powers, on the strength of seeing Giotto's models; for Oderigi, who having been already some time before deceased, was found by Dante in purgatory, according to Baldinucci's computation, in the year 1300?

The most eminent pupils educated by Franco in his school, according to Malvasia, are by name, Vitale, Lorenzo, Simone, Jacopo, Cristoforo; specimens of whose paintings in fresco are still seen at the Madonna di Mezzaratta. This church, in respect to the Bolognese, exhibits the same splendor as the Campo Santo of Pisa, in relation to the Florentine School; a studio in which the most distinguished trecentisti who flourished in the adjacent parts, competed for celebrity. They cannot, indeed, boast all the simplicity, the elegance, the happy distribution, which form the excellence of the Giottesque; but they display a fancy, fire, and method of colouring, which led Bonarruoti and the Caracci, considering the times in which they lived, not to undervalue them; insomuch that, on their shewing signs of decay, these artists took measures for their preservation. In the forementioned church, then, besides the pupils of Franco already named, Galasso of Ferrara, and an unknown imitator of the style of Giotto, asserted by Lamo in his MS. to have been Giotto himself, painted, at different times, histories from the Old and New Testament. I am inclined rather to pronounce the unknown artist to be Giotto's imitator; both because Vasari, in Mezzaratta, makes no mention of Giotto, and because, if the latter had painted, he would have ranked with the most eminent, and would have been selected to pursue his labours, not in that corner ornamented with paintings in the Florentine style, but in some more imposing situation.

I ought not to omit to mention in this place, that Giotto employed himself at Bologna. There is one of his altar-pieces still preserved at San Antonio with the superscription of Magister Ioctus de Florentia. We, moreover, learn from Vasari that Puccio Capanna, a Florentine, and Ottaviano da Faenza, with one Pace da Faenza, all pupils of Giotto, pursued their labours more or less at Bologna. Of these, if I mistake not, there are occasional specimens still to be met with in collections and in churches. Nor are there wanting works of the successors of Taddeo Gaddi, one of the school of Giotto, which, as I have seen great numbers in Florence, I have been able to distinguish with little difficulty among specimens of this other school. Besides this style, another was introduced into Bologna from Florence, that of Orcagna, whose Novissimi of S. Maria Novella were almost copied in a chapel of San Petronio, painted after the year 1400; the same edifice which Vasari on the strength of popular tradition, has asserted, was ornamented by Buffalmacco. From this information, we are brought to conclude that the Florentines exercised an influence over the art, even in Bologna; nor can I commend Malvasia, who, in recounting the progress of his school, gives them no place, nor makes them any acknowledgment. Their models, which at that period were the most excellent in the art, there is reason to suppose, may in those times have afforded assistance to the young Bolognese artists, as those of the school of Caracci, in another age, instructed the youth of Florence. It is time, however, to return to the pictures of Mezzaratta.

Lorenzo, an artist, as is elsewhere observed, of Venice more probably than of Bologna,[4] who produced the history of Daniel, on which he inscribed his name, painted during the same period, and attempted copious compositions. He was greatly inferior to the Memmi, to the Laurati, to the Gaddi, though he is represented as their equal in reputation by Malvasia. He betrays the infancy of the art, no less in point of design than in the expressions of his countenances, whose grief sometimes provokes a smile; and in his forced and extravagant attitudes in the manner of the Greeks. Hence it is here out of the question to mention Giotto, in whose school, cautiously avoiding every kind of extravagance, there predominates a certain gravity and repose, occasionally amounting to coldness; described by the author of the Bolognese Guide as the statuary manner; and it is one of those marks by which to distinguish that school from others of the same age.

At a later period flourished Galasso, who is to be sought for in the list of artists of Ferrara, along with the three supposed disciples of Vitale; namely, Cristoforo, Simone, and Jacopo; all of whom, in mature age, were engaged in pictures to decorate the church at Mezzaratta, which were completed in 1404. Vasari writes that he is uncertain whether Cristoforo belonged to Ferrara, or da Modena; and whilst the two cities were disputing the honour, the Bolognese historians, Baldi, Masini, and Bumaldo, adjusted the difference by referring him to their own Felsina. For me his country may remain matter of doubt, though not so the school in which he flourished; inasmuch as he certainly resided, and painted a great deal, both on altar-pieces and on walls, at Bologna. At that period, he must have attracted the largest share of applause; since to him was committed the figure of the altar, which is still in existence, with his name. The Signori Malvezzi, likewise, are in possession of one of his altar-pieces, abounding with figures of saints, and divided into ten compartments. The design of these figures is rude, the colouring languid; but the whole displays a taste assuredly not derived from the Florentines, and this is the principal difficulty in the question.

Simone, most commonly called in Bologna Da Crocifissi, was eminent in these sacred subjects. At S. Stefano, and other churches, he has exhibited several fine specimens, by no means incorrect in the naked figure, with a most devotional cast of features, extended arms, and a drapery of various colours. They resemble Giotto's in point of colouring, and in the posture of the feet, one of which is placed over the other, but in other respects they approach nearer the more ancient. I have seen also some Madonnas painted by him; sometimes in a sitting posture, at others in half-size, with drapery and with hands in the manner of the Greek paintings. In features, however, and in the attitudes, they are both carefully studied and commendable for those times; a specimen of which is still to be seen at S. Michele in Bosco.

Among the Bolognese trecentisti Jacopo Avanzi is the most distinguished. He produced the chief part of the histories at the church of Mezzaratta, many in conjunction with Simone, and a few of them alone; as the miracle of the Probation, at the bottom of which he wrote Jacobus pinxit. He appears to have employed himself with most success in the chapel of S. Jacopo al Santo, at Padua, where, in some very spirited figures, representing some exploit of arms, he may be said to have conformed his style pretty nearly to the Giottesque; and even in some measure to have surpassed Giotto, who was not skilful in heroic subjects. His masterpiece seems to have been the triumphs painted in a saloon at Verona, a work commended by Mantegna himself as an excellent production. He subscribed his name sometimes Jacobus Pauli; which has led me to doubt whether he was not originally from Venice, and the same artist who, together with Paolo his father, and his brother Giovanni, painted the ancient altar-piece of San Marco at that place. The time exactly favours such a supposition; the resemblance between the countenances in the paintings at S. Marco and at the Mezzaratta, farther confirms it; nor can I easily persuade myself that Avanzi would have entitled himself Jacobus Pauli, had there flourished another artist at the same period, likely, from similarity of signatures, to create a mistake. In the Notizia of Morelli, p. 5, he is called Jacomo Davanzo, a Paduan, or Veronese, or as some maintain a Bolognese, words which may create a doubt of the real place of his birth. Without entering on such a question, I shall only observe, that I incline to believe that his most fixed domicile, at least towards the close of his days, was at Bologna; and it has already been remarked, that some artists were accustomed to assume their place of residence for a surname. It would seem that two painters of this age derive their parentage from him: one who on an altar-piece at S. Michele in Bosco signs himself Petrus Jacobi, and the same Orazio di Jacopo mentioned by Malvasia. At all events it is observable in each school, that, where an artist was the son of a painter, he gladly adopted his father's name as a sort of support and recommendation of his own. One Giovanni of Bologna, unknown in his own country, has left at Venice a painting of S. Cristoforo, in the school of the Merchants at S. Maria dell'Orto, to which he adds his name, though without date; and, from his ancient manner, we are authorized to believe that he really belongs to the place which is here assigned him.

Lippo di Dalmasio, formerly believed to be a Carmelite friar, until the Turin edition of Baldinucci proved that he had died married, sprung from the school of Vitale, and was named Lippo dalle Madonne. It is not true, as reported, that he instructed the Beata Caterina Vigri in the art, by whom there remain some miniatures, and an infant Christ painted on panel. Lippo's manner scarcely varies from the ancient, except perhaps in better harmony of tints and flow of drapery; to which last, however, he adds fringes of gold lace tolerably wide, a practice very generally prevalent in the early part of the fifteenth century. His heads are beautiful and novel, more particularly in several Madonnas, which Guido Reni never ceased to admire, being in the habit of declaring that Lippo must have been indebted to some supernatural power for his exhibition in one countenance of all the majesty, the sanctity, and the sweetness of the holy mother, and that in this view he had not been equalled by any modern. Such is the account given by Malvasia, who relates it, he adds, as he heard it. He moreover assures us, on the authority of Guido, that Lippo painted several histories of Elias in fresco, with great spirit; while, on the experience of Tiarini, he would persuade us that he painted in oil at S. Procolo in via S. Stefano, and in private houses; on which point he impugns the commonly received opinion respecting Antonello, examined by us more than once. Contemporary with Lippo must have flourished Maso da Bologna, painter of the ancient cupola of the cathedral.

Subsequent to 1409, the latest epoch of the paintings of Lippo, the Bolognese School began to decline; nor could it well be otherwise. Dalmatio, an instructor of youth, was not by profession a painter of history; and, as portrait painters never particularly promoted the progress of any school, so on his part he conferred little benefit on his own. This decline has been attributed to some specimens of art brought from Constantinople, overcharged with dark lines in the contours and folds, and in the remaining parts resembling rather the dryness and inelegance of the Greek mosaic-workers, than the softness and grace then sought to be introduced by the most eminent Italians in the art. Copies of these were eagerly inquired for in Bologna, and in all adjacent cities, which produced that abundance of them, still to be seen in the sale shops and private houses throughout those districts, besides several in the city and state of Venice.[5] But, in these instances, they were only copied; in Bologna they were imitated likewise by several pupils of Lippo, who, either in part or altogether, adopted that style in their own compositions. One Lianori, usually inscribing his name Petrus Joannis, and known by some works interspersed in different churches and collections, is most accused of this extravagance; an Orazio di Jacopo, (perhaps dell'Avanzi) of whom there remains a portrait of S. Bernardino, at the church of the Osservanza; a Severo da Bologna, to whom is ascribed a rude altar-piece, in the Malvezzi Museum; with several others, either little known or unmentioned, whose names I am not surprised should be omitted by Vasari, who, in the same way, passes over the least distinguished of his own country. It is true, he makes mention of one Galante da Bologna, who, he avers, designed better than Lippo, his master; but in this he is still taken to task by Malvasia, who includes Galante among the inferior pupils of Dalmasio.

Nevertheless, the germ of good painting was not wanting, as far as the times permitted it to exist, both in Bologna and throughout Romagna. Malvasia commends one Jacopo Ripanda, who long flourished at Rome, where, as is commemorated by Volterrano, he began to design the bassi-relievi of the Trajan Column; one Ercole, a Bolognese, who somewhat improved the symmetry of the human figure; one Bombologno, a carver of crucifixes, like Simone, but of more refined composition. He more particularly celebrates a Michel di Matteo, or Michel Lambertini; in whose commendation it may be enough to state, that Albano praised one of his pictures, supposed to be in oil, completed in 1443, for the fish-market, and even preferred it for its softness to those of Francia. The few which we still possess in our own times, both at the churches of S. Pietro and S. Jacopo, might be put in competition with the contemporary works of almost any master.

But the artist who produced an epoch in his school is Marco Zoppo, who having transferred his education under Lippo to the studio of Squarcione, rose to equal eminence with Pizzolo and Dario da Trevigi; and, like them, vied with the genius of Mantegna, and gave a farther spur to his exertions. He also studied some time in the Venetian School, where he painted for the Osservanti, at Pesaro, a picture of the Virgin on a Throne, crowned, with S. Giovanni the Baptist, San Francesco, and other saints, and signed it Marco Zoppo da Bologna Dip. in Vinexia, 1471. This is the most celebrated production which he left behind him; from which, and a few other pieces in the same church, and at Bologna, we may gather some idea of his style. The composition is that common to the quattrocentisti, particularly the Venetians, and which he probably introduced into Bologna, a style which continued to the time of Francia and his school, for the most part unvaried, except in the addition of some cherub to the steps of the throne, sometimes with a harp, and sometimes without. It is not a free and graceful style, like that of Mantegna, but rather coarse, particularly in the drawing of the feet; yet less rectilinear in the folds, and bolder, and more harmonious, perhaps, in the selection of the colours. The fleshes are as much studied as in Signorelli, and in others of the same age; while the figures and the accessories are conducted with the most finished care. Marco was, likewise, a fine decorator of façades, in which kind of painting he was assisted by his companion and imitator, Jacopo Forti, to whose hand is ascribed a Madonna, painted on the wall, at the church of S. Tommaso, in Mercato. In the Malvezzi collection there is also attributed to Jacopo a Deposition of the Saviour from the Cross; a work which does not keep pace with the progressive improvements of that age. The same remark will apply to a great number of others, produced about the same period, in the same city, which, towards the close of the century, displayed a striking deficiency in good artists. It was owing to this circumstance that Gio. Bentivoglio, then master of Bologna, wishing to ornament his palace, which, had fortune favoured him, would one day have become that of all Romagna, invited a number of artists from Ferrara and Modena, who introduced a better taste into Bologna, besides affording an occasion for the grand genius of Francia to develop itself likewise in the art of painting, as we shall proceed to shew.

This artist, whose real name was Francesco Raibolini, was, according to Malvasia, esteemed and celebrated as the first man of that age; and he might have added, in Bologna, where many so considered him; being there, as is attested by Vasari, held in the estimation of a god. The truth is, that he had a consummate genius for working in gold; on which account the medals and coins taken with his moulds rivalled those of Caradosso, the Milanese; and he was also an excellent painter, in that style which is termed modern antique, as may be gathered from a great number of collections, where his Madonnas rank at the side of those of Pietro Perugino and Gian Bellini. Raffaello, too, compares him with them, and even greater artists, in a letter dated 1508, edited by Malvasia, in which he praises his Madonnas, "never having beheld any more beautiful, more devotional in their expression, and more finely composed by any artist." His manner is nearly between that of these two heads of their schools, and participates in the excellence of both; it boasts Perugino's choiceness and tone of colours; while, in the fulness of its outlines, in the skill of the folding, and ample flow of the draperies, it bears greater resemblance to Bellini. His heads, however, do not equal the grace and sweetness of the former; though he is more dignified and varied than the latter. In the accessories of his landscapes he rivals both; but in landscape itself, and in the splendor of his architecture, he is inferior to them. In the composition of his pictures he is less fond of placing the divine infant in the bosom of the Virgin than upon a distinct ground, in the ancient manner of his school; and he sometimes adds to them some half figures of saints, as was customary with the Venetians of that period. On the whole, however, he approaches nearer to the Roman School; and, not unfrequently, as is noticed by Malvasia, his Madonnas have been ascribed by less expert judges to Pietro Perugino. He likewise produced works in fresco at Bologna, commended by Vasari; and both there and elsewhere are many of his altar-pieces yet remaining, displaying figures of larger dimensions than those usually painted by Bellini and Perugino; the peculiar merit of the Bolognese School, and by degrees extended to others, augmenting at once the grandeur of painting and of the temples it adorned.

But the chief praise due to him yet remains to be recorded, and this is, that he did not begin to exercise his pencil until he had arrived at manhood, and, in the course of a few years, displayed the rare example of becoming a scholar and a master, able to compete with the best artists of Ferrara and Modena. These, as we have mentioned, were invited by Gio. Bentivoglio, in order to decorate his palace. There, too, Francia was employed; and he was afterwards commissioned to paint the altar-piece of the Bentivogli chapel, in 1490, where he signed himself Franciscus Francia Aurifex, as much as to imply that he belonged to the goldsmith's art, not to that of painting. Nevertheless, that work is a beautiful specimen, displaying the most finished delicacy of art in every individual figure and ornament, especially in the arabesque pilasters, in the Mantegna manner. In process of time he enlarged his style; a circumstance that induced historians to make a distinction between his first and second manner. Cavazzoni, who wrote respecting the Madonnas of Bologna, wishes to persuade us that Raffaello himself had availed himself of Francia's models, in order to dilate that dry manner which he imbibed from Perugino. We shall award this glory to the genius of Raffaello, whose youthful performances at San Severo of Perugia, display a greater degree of softness than those of his master and of Francia; and after his genius, to the examples of F. Bartolommeo della Porta, and of Michelangiolo; leaving, we fear, no room to include the name of Francia. When Raffaello, at Rome, was regarded rather in the light of an angel than a man, and had already executed some works at Bologna, he began a correspondence with Francia, urged to it by his letters; Raffaello became his friend; and, on sending to Bologna his picture of S. Cecilia, he intreated him, on discovering any error in it, to correct it; an instance of modesty in our Apelles, more to be admired even than his paintings. This occurred in 1518, in which year Vasari closes his life of Francia, who he declares died with excess of passion, on first beholding that grand performance. Malvasia, however, refutes him, by proving Francia to "have lived many years afterwards, and when aged and declining, even to have changed his manner;" and in what way, except upon the models of Raffaello? In his new manner he painted and exhibited, in a chamber of the Mint, his celebrated piece of S. Sebastian, which, according to a tradition handed from the Caracci to Albano, and from the latter to Malvasia, served as a studio for the Bolognese pupils, who copied its proportions with as much zeal as the ancients would have done those of a statue of Polycletes, or the moderns of the Apollo, or of the supposed Antinous of Belvidere. Albani has added that Francia, on perceiving the concourse of people increase round his picture, and diminish round the St. Cecilia of Raffaello, then dead, apprehensive lest they should suspect him of having executed and exhibited his own in competition with such an artist, instantly removed and placed it in the church of the Misericordia, where, at this time, there remains a copy of it. The precise year of his decease, hitherto unknown, has been communicated to me by the Sig. Cav. Ratti, who found on an ancient drawing of a female saint, now in possession of Sig. Tommaso Bernardi, a noble of Lucca, a memorandum of this event having occurred on the seventh day of April, 1533.

Francia, in addition to his cousin Giulio, who devoted himself but little to painting, gave instructions in the art to his own son of the name of Giacomo. It is often doubtful, as we find in the Gallery of the princes Giustiniani, whether such a Madonna is by the hand of Francesco Francia, or by that of his son, who, in similar pictures imitated closely his father's style, although, in Malvasia's judgment, he never equalled it. In works on a larger scale too, he is sometimes to be pronounced inferior, in comparison with his father, as in S. Vitale, at Bologna, where Francesco painted the cherubs round a Madonna, in his first manner, somewhat meagre, perhaps, but still beautiful and full of animated movements, while Giacomo drew the figures, representing a Nativity of our Lord, more soft in point of design, but with features less beautiful, and in attitudes and expressions bordering on extravagance. At other times, the son seems to have surpassed the father, as at S. Giovanni, of Parma, where there is no artist who would not wish to have produced that fine picture by Giacomo, marked with the year 1519, rather than the Deposition from the Cross, by Francesco. Elsewhere too, as in the picture of S. Giorgio, at the church of San Francesco in Bologna, he rivals, perhaps, the finest works by his father; insomuch that this specimen was ascribed to the latter, until there was recently noticed the signature I., (meaning Jacobus) Francia, 1526. He appears, from the first, to have practised a design approaching that of the moderns; neither have I observed in his paintings such splendid gildings, nor such meagre arms, as for some time distinguished the elder Francia. He rather, in progress of time, continued to acquire a more free and easy manner, insomuch that a few of his Madonnas were more than once copied and engraved by Agostino Caracci. His heads were extremely animated, though generally less select, less studied, and less beautiful, than his father's. He had a son, named Giambatista, by whom there remains, at S. Rocco, an altar-piece, and a few other specimens, displaying mere mediocrity.

Among the foreign pupils of Francia, the Bolognese enumerated Lorenzo Costa, and, indeed, he thus ranks himself, by inscribing under the portrait of Gio. Bentivoglio, L. Costa Franciae discipulus. True it is, that such inscriptions, as I have frequently found, might come from another hand; or that, granting he wrote it, he may have done so more out of regard to such a man, than for the sake of acquainting the world, as Malvasia contends, that he had been his sole master. Vasari is of a different opinion, introducing him to us at Bologna as an established artist, already employed in several considerable cities, and bestowing the highest eulogium on his earliest production, the S. Sebastiano at the church of S. Petronio, declaring it the best specimen in water-colours that had, till then, been seen in the city. Add to this, that Francia exhibited his first altar-piece in the Bentivogli chapel in 1490, a few years after he had devoted himself to the art; and there Costa placed the two lateral pictures, tolerably excellent in point of composition, and filled with those very spirited portraits of his in 1488. Now had he boasted only Francia for his master, of what rapid improvement must we suppose him to have been capable! Besides, would not his style almost invariably resemble that of Francia, at least in the works he produced at Bologna? Yet the contrary is the case; and from his less free, and sometimes ill drawn figures; from the coarser expression of his countenances, his more hard and dull colouring, and his abundance of architecture, with the taste shewn in his perspective, it is evident he must have studied elsewhere. Still I believe that he received the rudiments of his education in his own country; that then passing into Tuscany, he formed himself, not by the voice, but, as Vasari avers, upon the pictures of Lippi and Gozzoli; and that finally seeking Bologna, he painted for the Bentivogli, and resided also with Francia rather in quality of an assistant than a pupil. A farther proof I gather from Malvasia himself; that in the journals of Francesco, in which he read the names of two hundred and twenty pupils, he found no mention of Costa. In the rest, however, I concur; as to his having availed himself of the works of Francia, in imitation of whom a number of Madonnas are seen in the collections at Bologna, much inferior to the paintings of the supposed master; but occasionally not unworthy of being compared with them. Such is an altar-piece, divided into several compartments, removed from Faenza into the Casa Ercolani; a production characterized by Crespi, in his annotations to Baruffaldi, as being executed "with a fervour, a refinement, softness, and a warmth which may be pronounced altogether Raffaellesque." He particularly shone in his countenances of men, as may be seen from those of the apostles at S. Petronio, and from his San Girolamo, which there offers the finest specimen of his art. He was less employed in his own country than in Bologna, though he gave several pupils to the former; among others the celebrated Dosso and Ercole of Ferrara. He mostly resided at Mantua, at which court he was highly appreciated, although Mantegna had been his immediate predecessor, and Giulio Romano succeeded him. I may refer to what I there wrote respecting this artist.

A less doubtful pupil of Francia's was Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola. His portraits are much praised by Vasari, but his compositions much less so. He was by no means happy in all; and in particular one which he produced at Rimini, is severely criticised by the historian. There are various altar-pieces by him at Bologna and elsewhere, all of the usual composition of the quattrocentisti, which goes to redeem his fault. One of these, exhibiting very beautiful perspective, is in possession of the Serviti at Pesaro, where the Virgin is seen on a throne, before which, in a kneeling posture, is the Marchesa Ginevra Sforza, with her son Constantius II.; nor is this the only specimen of his works conducted in the service of royal houses. The design is rather dry, but the colour very pleasing; the heads grand, the draperies well disposed; and in short, were it the only production of his hand, he would well deserve to rank among the most illustrious painters in the old style. That he obtained no reputation at Rome, or Naples, as Vasari observes, was owing to his arriving in those cities too late, namely, in the pontificate of Paul III.; so that his style being then regarded merely in the light of an article out of fashion, he was unable to make his way. He died during the same pontificate, between the interval of 1534 and 1549. Orlandi, who brings in the decease of Cotignola as early as 1518, is not only refuted by the above dates marked by Vasari, and, with slight difference, by Baruffaldi, but moreover by a picture of S. Girolamo at the church of the conventual friars of S. Marino, executed in 1520.

Amico Aspertini is enrolled by Malvasia (pp. 58, 59) in the school of Francia, a fact that Vasari did not choose to notice, being wholly bent on amusing posterity with a portrait of the person and manners of "Mastro Amico," who was indeed a compound of pleasantry, eccentricity, and madness. He had adopted a maxim in painting, which in regard to literature, was commonly received in that age; to wit, that every individual ought to impress upon his works the image of his own genius; and, like Erasmus, who exposed to ridicule Cicero's imitators in writing, this artist was fond of deriding those of Raffaello in painting. It was his leading principle to take the tour of Italy, to copy here and there, without discrimination, whatever most pleased him, and afterwards to form a style of his own, "like an experienced inventor," to preserve an expression of Vasari. Conducted on this plan is a Pietà by him, in the church of S. Petronio, which may be compared with the trecentisti in point of forms, the attitudes, and the grouping of the figures. We may add, however, with Guercino, that this artist seemed to handle two pencils; with one of which he painted for low prices, or out of despite, or for revenge; and this he made use of in S. Petronio and several other pieces; the other he practised only on behalf of those who remunerated him honourably for his labours, and were cautious how they provoked him; and with this he displayed his art in various façades of palaces, commended by Vasari himself; in the church of S. Martino; and in many other works cited by Malvasia, who describes him as a good imitator of Giorgione.

He had an elder brother of the name of Guido, a youth who employed uncommon diligence and care, carried perhaps to excess, in his art. He died at the age of thirty-five, and was lamented by his more poetical fellow citizens in elegiac strains. Malvasia is of opinion, that, had he survived, he would have equalled the fame of Bagnacavallo; such was the promise held forth by a painting of the Crucifixion under the portico of S. Pietro, and by his other works. According to the same biographer, it was Vasari's malice which led him to assign Ercole of Ferrara for Guido's master, being jealous of affording M. Amico the fame of forming such a pupil. I feel persuaded, with Vasari, no less from the age of Guido than from his taste, and from the date of 1491, which he inscribed on this highly commended picture, that assuredly it cannot belong to the pupil of a pupil formed by Francia. Similar critical errors we have already noticed in Baldinucci; and they are not very easily to be avoided where a party spirit is apt to prevail.

Gio. Maria Chiodarolo, a rival of the preceding, and subsequently of Innocenzo da Imola, in the palace of Viola, left behind him a name above the generality of this school. Malvasia mentions twenty-four other scholars of Francesco Francia, in which he was followed by Orlandi, when treating of Lorenzo Gandolfi. By some mistake these pupils are referred by him to Costa; while Bottari, misled by Orlandi, fell into the same error, although he laments "that men, in order to spare trouble, are apt to follow one another like sheep or cranes." Yet in very extensive and laborious works it is difficult sometimes not to nod; nor should I occasionally note down others' inequalities, except in the hope of finding readers considerate enough to extend the same liberality towards mine. The forementioned names will prove of much utility to those who, in Milan, in Pavia, in Parma, and other places in Italy, may turn their attention to works in the ancient Bolognese style, and may hear them attributed, as it often happens, to Francia, instead of the pupils formed by him to practice in those districts, and invariably tenacious of his manner. He had also others, who from their intercourse with more modern artists, claim place in a better epoch; and for such we shall reserve them.

We must previously however take a survey of some cities of Romagna, and select what seems to belong to our present argument. We shall commence with Ravenna, a city that preserved design during periods of barbarism better than any other in Italy. Nor do we elsewhere meet with works in mosaic so well composed, and in ivory, or in marble, cut in so able a manner; all vestiges of a power and grandeur worthy of exciting the jealousy of Rome, when the seat of her princes and exarchs was removed to Ravenna. This city too having fallen from its splendour, and after many vicissitudes being governed by the Polentani, was no less indebted to them for an illustrious poet in the person of Dante, than a great painter in Giotto.[6] This artist painted in the church called Porto di Fuori, several histories from the evangelists, which still remain there; and at S. Francesco and other places in the city, we may trace reliques of his pencil, or at least of his style. The Polentani being expelled, and the state brought under the subjection of Venice, from this last capital the city of Ravenna derived the founder of a new school.

This was Niccolo Rondinello, mentioned by Vasari as one "who, above all others, imitated Gian Bellini, his master, to whom he did credit, and assisted him in all his works." In the life of Bellini, and in that of Palma, Vasari gives a list of his best paintings, exhibited in Ravenna. In these his progress is very perceptible. He displays most of the antique in his picture of S. Giovanni, placed in that church, for which he also executed one of the Virgin, upon a gold ground. His taste is more modern in the larger altar-piece of San Domenico; whose composition rises above the monotony of the age, giving a representation of saints in great variety of attitudes and situations. The design is exact, though always inclining to dryness, the countenances less select, and the colouring less vivid than those of his master; with equal care in his draperies, richly ornamented with embroidery in the taste of those times. It is, however, uncertain whether he had obtained any idea of the last and most perfect style of Bellini.

He had a pupil and successor in his labours at Ravenna in Francesco da Cotignola, whom Bonoli, in his history of Lugo, and that of Cotignola, as well as the describer of the Parmese paintings, agree in surnaming Marchesi, while in the Guide to Ravenna, he is denominated Zaganelli. Vasari commends him, as a very pleasing colourist; although inferior to Rondinello in point of design, and still more of composition. In this he was not happy, if we except his celebrated Resurrection of Lazarus, which is to be seen at Classe; his extremely beautiful baptism of Jesus Christ, at Faenza, and a few other histories, where he checks his ardour, and more carefully disposes his figures, for the most part fine and well draped; occasionally whimsical, and in proportions less than life. One of his most extraordinary productions is a large altar-piece at the church of the Osservanti, in Parma, where he represented the Virgin between several Saints, enlivened by several portraits in the background. He never, in my opinion, produced any work more solid in conception, nor more harmoniously disposed, nor more ingenious in the colonnade, and the other accessary parts. Here he preserved the most moderate tints, contrary to his usual practice, which was glowing and highly animated, and distributed more in the manner of Mantegna, than of any other master. He had a brother named Bernardino, with whom, in 1504, he painted a very celebrated altar-piece, representing the Virgin between S. Francesco and the Baptist, placed in the interior chapel of the Padri Osservanti, in Ravenna; and another to be seen at Imola, in the church of the Riformati, with the date 1509. Bernardino, likewise, displayed tolerable ability alone, and among the paintings at Pavia, there is one at the Carmine, inscribed with his name; a fact that may correct an error of Crespi, who names the elder brother Francesco Bernardino, making the two into one artist.

Contemporary with him, Baldassare Carrari was employed at Ravenna along with his son Matteo, both natives of that state. They painted for San Domenico the celebrated altar-piece of S. Bartolommeo, with the grado, containing very elegant histories of the Holy Apostle. Such is its merit, as hardly to yield to the gracefulness of Luca Longhi, who placed one of his own pictures near it. It was one of the earliest which was painted in oil in Ravenna; and it deserved the eulogium bestowed by Pope Julius II., who on beholding it, in 1511, declared, that the altars of Rome could boast no pieces which surpassed it in point of beauty. The painter there left his portrait in the figure of S. Pietro, and that of Rondinello in the S. Bartolommeo, somewhat older; an observance shewn in those times by the pupils towards their masters. Yet I should not here pronounce it such, as Vasari is not only wholly silent as to his school, but omits even his name.

At Rimini, where the Malatesti spared no expense to attract the best masters, the art of painting flourished. It was at this time that the church of San Francesco, one of the wonders of the age, was nobly erected, and as richly decorated. A number of artists at Rimini had succeeded Giotto in his school; and it is to them the author of the Guide ascribes the histories of the B. Michelina, which Vasari conceived were from Giotto's own hand.[7] At a later period one Bitino, whose name I am happy to rescue from oblivion, was employed at the same place; an artist not perhaps excelled in Italy, about the year 1407, when he painted an altar-piece of the titular saint, for the church of S. Giuliano. Around it he represented the discovery of his body, and other facts relating to the subject; extremely pleasing in point of invention, architecture, countenances, draperies, and colouring.[8] Another noble production is a S. Sigismondo, at whose feet appears Sigismondo Malatesta, with the inscription, Franciscus de Burgo, f. 1446; and by the same hand there is the Scourging of our Saviour. Both these paintings are seen on the wall of S. Francesco; abounding in perspectives and capricci, with character approaching so nearly to the taste of Pietro della Francesca, then living, as to induce me to believe, that they are either by him, and that he has thus Latinized the name of his house, or by some one of his pupils, whose name has perished. Not such has been the fate of Benedetto Coda, of Ferrara, who flourished at Rimini, as well as his son Bartolommeo, where they left a number of their works. Vasari, in his life of Gio. Bellini, makes brief mention of them, describing Benedetto as Bellini's pupil, "though he derived small advantage from it." Yet the altar-piece representing the Marriage of the Virgin, which he placed in the cathedral, with the inscription of Opus Benedicti, is a very respectable production; while that of the Rosary, in possession of the Dominicans, is even in better taste, though not yet modern. This, however, cannot be said of the son, one of whose pictures I saw at S. Rocco da Pesaro, painted in 1528, with such excellent method, as almost to remind us of the golden age. It represents the titular saint of the church along with S. Sebastiano, standing round the throne of the Virgin, with the addition of playful and beautiful cherubs. Another pupil of Gio. Bellini is noticed by Ridolfi. Lattanzio da Rimino, or Lattanzio della Marca, referred by others to the school of Pietro Perugino, which, perhaps too, produced Gio. da Rimino, one of whose pictures, bearing his signature, belongs to the grand Ercolani collection at Bologna.[9]

Forli, as far as I can learn, boasts no artist earlier than Guglielmo da Forli, a pupil of Giotto. His paintings in fresco, conducted at the Francescani, no longer survive, nor in the church of that order could I meet with any specimen of the thirteenth century, besides a Crucifix by some unknown hand. From that period, perhaps, a succession of artists appeared, there being no scarcity of anonymous paintings from which to conjecture such a fact; but history is silent until the time of Ansovino di Forli, who has already been included among the pupils of Squarcione. I have my doubts whether this artist could be the master of Melozzo, a name venerated by artists, inasmuch as he was the first who applied the art of foreshortening, the most difficult and the most severe, to the painting of vaulted ceilings. Considerable progress was made in perspective after the time of Paolo Uccello, with the aid of Piero della Francesca, a celebrated geometrician, and of a few Lombards. But the ornamenting of ceilings with that pleasing art and illusion, which afterwards appeared, was reserved for Melozzo. It is observed by Scannelli, and followed by Orlandi, that in order to acquire the art he studied the works of the best ancient artists, and though born to fortune, he did not refuse to lodge with the masters of his times, in quality of attendant and compounder of their colours. Some writers give him as a pupil to Pietro della Francesca. It is at least probable, that Melozzo was acquainted with him and with Agostino Bramantino, when they were employed at Rome by Nicholas V., towards the year 1455. However this may be, Melozzo painted on the ceiling of the great chapel, at Santi Apostoli, the Ascension of our Lord, where, says Vasari, "the figure of Christ is so admirably foreshortened as to appear to pierce the vault; and in the same manner the angels are seen sweeping through the field of air in two opposite directions." This painting was executed for Card. Riario, nephew to Pope Sixtus IV. about the year 1472; and when that edifice required to undergo repairs, it was removed and placed in the Quirinal palace in 1711; where it is still seen, bearing this inscription: "Opus Melotii Foroliviensis, qui summos fornices pingendi artem vel primus invenit vel illustravit." Several heads of the apostles which surrounded it, and were likewise cut away, were deposited in the Vatican palace. Taken as a whole, he approaches Mantegna and the Paduan School nearer than any other in point of taste; finely formed heads, fine colouring, fine attitudes, and almost all as finely foreshortened. The light is well disposed and graduated, the shadows are judicious, so that the figures seem to stand out and act in that apparent space; dignity and grandeur in the principal figure, and white drapery that encircles it; with delicacy of hand, diligence and grace in every part. What pity that so rare a genius, pronounced by his contemporaries "an incomparable painter, and the splendour of all Italy,"[10] should not have had a correct historian to have described his travels and his pursuits, which must have been both arduous and interesting, before they raised him to the eminence he attained, in being commissioned by Card. Riario to execute so great a work. At Forli, there is still pointed out the façade of an apothecary's shop, displaying Arabesques in the first style; and over the entrance appears a half-length figure, well depicted, in the act of mixing drugs, said to have been the work of Melozzo. Vasari states, that in the villa of the Dukes of Urbino, named the Imperial, Francesco di Mirozzo, from Forli, had been employed a long while previous to Dosso; and it would appear that we are here to substitute the name of Melozzo, to correct one of those errors which we have so frequently before remarked in Vasari. In the lives of the Ferrarese painters there is named a Marco Ambrogio, detto Melozzo di Ferrara, who seems to be confounded with the inventor of foreshortening; but it is my opinion that this was quite a different artist, of which his name itself gives us reasons to judge. Melozzo di Forli was still alive in 1494: since F. Luca Paccioli, publishing the same year his "Summa d'Aritmetica e Geometria," ranks him among painters in perspective, "men famous and supreme," who flourished in those days.

Towards the beginning of the sixteenth century, or shortly afterwards, Bartolommeo di Forli flourished in the same city, a pupil of Francia, noticed by Malvasia, whose style was more dry than that of the generality of his fellow pupils. Next to him I place Palmegiani, transformed by Vasari into Parmegiano; a good, yet almost unknown artist, of whom, in books upon the art, I have found mention only of two works, although I have myself seen a great number. He was cautious too that posterity should not forget him, for the most part inscribing his name and country upon his altar-pieces, and upon pictures for private ornament, as follows: Marcus Pictor Foroliviensis: or Marcus Palmasanus P. Foroliviensis pinsebat. He seldom adds the year, as in two in possession of prince Ercolani, on the first of which we find the date of 1513, and on the second that of 1537. In the forementioned pictures, and more particularly in those of Forli, we may perceive that he practised more than one style. His earliest was in common with that of the quattrocentisti, in the extremely simple position of the figures, in the gilt ornaments in study of each minute part, as well as in the anatomy, which in those times consisted almost wholly in drawing with some skill a S. Sebastian, or some holy anchorite. In his second manner he was more artificial in his grouping, fuller in his outlines, and greater in his proportions; though at times more free and less varied in his heads. He was accustomed to add to his principal subject some other unconnected with it, as in his picture of the Crucifixion, at S. Agostino di Forli, where he inserted two or three groups on different grounds; in one of which is seen S. Paul visited by S. Antony; in another, S. Augustine convinced by the angel on the subject of the incomprehensibility of the Supreme Triad; and in these diminutive figures, which he inserted either in the altar-pieces or on the steps, he displays an art extremely refined and pleasing. His landscape is likewise animated, and his architecture beautiful, while his Madonnas and other portraits are superior in point of beauty to those of Costa, but not equal to Francia, whose style of colouring he less resembles than that of Rondinello; a circumstance which led Vasari to attribute to the artist of Ravenna an altar-piece in the cathedral, undoubtedly from the hand of Palmegiani. The works of the latter are very numerous in Romagna; and exist in the state of Venice. One of his Madonnas was in possession of the Ab. Facciolati, in Padua, and mentioned by Bottari; and another belongs to the Sig. Dottore Antonio Larber, at Bassano. The select gallery of Count Luigi Tadini, at Crema, possesses a third; the going up of Jesus to Mount Calvary; and I saw a Dead Christ, between Nicodemus and Joseph, in the Vicentini palace at Vicenza; a very beautiful picture, in which the dead has truly the appearance of death, and those living of real life. I had long entertained a curiosity to learn whose pupil so considerable an artist could have been; until I was gratified by finding that Paccioli, in his dedication of the above cited volume, addressed to Guidubaldo, Duke of Urbino, calls him the "attached disciple of Melozzo."