Much of the same ugliness of type, accompanied by greater truth and character, is visible in the curious “Crucifixion” on gold ground, ascribed to Jacopo degli Avanzi, in the Colonna Gallery at Rome, and in the other altar-pieces which bear his name at Bologna. The personality of this artist has been a cause of endless controversy, but at least it has been shown that Vasari is clearly wrong in confusing him with d’Avanzo of Verona, who assisted Altichieri in painting the chapel of St. George at Padua. Whether Avanzi of Bologna is identical with the Jacobus Pauli who painted the “Coronation of the Virgin” in San Giacomo Maggiore, is a matter of small importance; but what we know for certain is, that a Bolognese painter by name Jacopo, whom Vasari probably rightly calls Avanzo, was the best of all the different artists who painted in that most interesting of all Bologna churches, the Madonna della Mezzaratta. This small chapel, called by Lanzi the Campo-Santo of Bologna, was built in the twelfth century outside the Porta San Mammolo, and decorated with frescoes in the fourteenth by a succession of native painters. Vasari alludes to it more than once in his “Lives” as the _Casa di Mezzo_, and speaks of the series painted there by Jacopo d’Avanzo, Cristofano, Simone, and at a later period by Galassi of Ferrara. The frescoes of the Mezzaratta were no doubt the most important works of art achieved by early Bolognese painters, and—although their execution is too rude, and their present condition too imperfect to allow of comparison with the productions of Giotto and his scholars at Padua and Assisi—the scanty fragments that remain are still of the deepest interest to the student. The most celebrated artists of later ages who had the advantage of seeing these frescoes in a comparatively good state of preservation are said to have held them in the highest esteem. Michelangelo himself visited the chapel and praised its paintings in the warmest terms, while the Carracci exerted themselves strenuously to save them from destruction. Unfortunately, later generations have been less mindful of their condition. The roof of the church was taken off some years ago and the upper part used as a granary, while most of the frescoes were whitewashed and many entirely obliterated. At the present moment the chapel of Mezzaratta is attached to a villa, which was for many years the property of the Italian Minister, Cavaliere Minghetti. This accomplished statesman took every possible means to save these relics of early art from further destruction, and by his care several frescoes were recovered from the coat of whitewash which concealed them.