The most precious ornaments of the palaces are the paintings, particularly those of the celebrated masters which this city had the honour of producing. Raphael is generally allowed to have excelled all painters in the sublimity of his ideas, the grouping of his figures, the beauty of his heads, the elegance of his forms, and the correctness of his outlines; yet, in the opinion of some, he has oftener imitated those noble ideas of beauty, transmitted to us by the Greek sculptors, than what he saw, or could observe, in nature. Those who hold this opinion assert, that the best masters of the Lombard School studied, with equal assiduity, the elegance of the antique statues, and the simplicity of nature; and from this combined attention to both, with geniuses less sublime, and not so universal, as that of the Roman painter, they have produced works equal, if not superior in some respects, to his. In all this, I beg you may keep in your remembrance, that I am not affecting to give any opinion of my own, but merely repeating the sentiments of others. Next to Rome itself, there is, perhaps, no town in the world so rich in paintings as Bologna. The churches and palaces, besides many admired pieces by other masters, are full of the works of the great masters who were natives of this city. I must not lead you among those masterpieces; it is not for so poor a judge as I am to point the peculiar excellencies of the Caraccis, Dominichino, Albano, or compare the energy of Guercino’s pencil with the grace of Guido’s. With regard to the last, I shall venture to say, that the graceful air of his young men, the elegant forms, and mild persuasive devotion, of his Madonas; the art with which, to all the inviting loveliness of female features, he joins all the gentleness and modesty which belong to the female character, are the peculiar excellencies of this charming painter.