it, for certainly my gossip Genga is a great and gifted architect, far surpassing all my anticipations." The frescoes, illustrating his employer's life, were distributed by him to several foreign artificers, the duchy not boasting any painter of talent since the recent death of his friend Timoteo Vite. Among these was his pupil Francesco Minzocchi of Forlì, who, living on the limits of the old manner and the new, succeeded in uniting many excellences of both; yet, his works at Padua, Venice, Forlì, and Loreto, though highly creditable, scarcely merit the exaggerated praise bestowed on some of them by Vasari. That biographer's oversight, and his own modesty, have, on the other hand, done scrimp justice to Raffaele del Colle, whose attractive pencil is scarcely appreciated, notwithstanding Lanzi's eulogy. A pupil of the incomparable Sanzio, and of Giulio Romano, he preserved a healthy style amid prevailing deterioration; and many of his pictures still adorn the churches of Central Italy.[217] Contemporary with these was Angelo Bronzino, who maintained at Florence, during an age of general feebleness, the reputation transmitted by Andrea del Sarto and Pontormo. The grace of a Cupid, which he painted upon a corbel at the Imperiale, gained for him the patronage of Prince Guidobaldo, who employed him in small productions more congenial to his genius, including his portrait, and a harpsichord cover, both of them greatly admired, but now lost. The landscape ornaments in the villa were entrusted to the brothers Dossi, of Ferrara, or rather perhaps to Giovanbattista, the younger, and less able of them; but so total was their failure, that they were immediately thrown down, and replaced by others from Genga's designs. More successful in that light style were the portions committed to Camillo of Mantua, whose rural decorations are praised by Vasari and Lanzi. [Footnote 216: See p. 49.] [Footnote 217: He left some valuable works in the upper valley of the Metauro, now almost destroyed. Such are his Prophets and Sybils in ten lunettes round the Corpus Domini at Urbania, with two Nativities in the same church, one in fresco, the other on canvas. An altar-piece, in the church of the Servites at S. Angelo in Vado, is very inferior to his Madonna and Saints in S. Francesco of Cagli. Some frescoes at Gubbio, lauded by Lanzi, and dated 1546, are among his best works.]