Among the artists who repaired to Urbino at the summons of Duke Federigo, for the construction of his palace, was Ambrogio Barocci, or Baroccio, a Milanese sculptor, who established himself there, and, after long labouring on its plastic decorations, founded a family singularly distinguished in the higher branches of mechanical and pictorial art. His two daughters were married to Girolamo and Nicolò della Genga, and his great-grandson Federigo, upon whose biography we must dwell at some length, had an elder brother Simone, who after studying the exact sciences under Federigo Comandino, became the best mathematical instrument maker that had hitherto been seen. His cousins, the Cavaliere Giovanni Battista and Giovanni Maria, were not less famous in watchmaking, an art successfully patronised by the Dukes delle Rovere, which we shall mention in our fifty-fifth chapter. FEDERIGO BAROCCIO was born in 1528, and initiated into the rudiments of design by his father, who practised engraving and modelling. His early efforts having been approved by his grand-uncle Girolamo Genga, he was placed under the tuition of Battista Franco of Venice, an indifferent painter, much employed in the majolica shops at Urbino, whose taste for designing from antique sculpture directed his pupil's attention to those effects of chiaroscuro which distinguished his matured style. After assiduous labours in this way, he repaired to Pesaro, then his sovereigns' residence, where were placed their accumulated treasures of art. There he observed the works of Raffaele and Titian, under the guidance of Genga, who carefully advanced his artistic education, especially in perspective. At twenty he went to Rome, anxious to see the triumphs of his great countryman, which he forthwith set himself to study. Several anecdotes are told of his modesty, which kept him in the background until chance obtained for his drawings a passing compliment from Michael Angelo, and the warm sympathy and encouragement of Giovanni da Udine, delighted to find in the youth a countryman as well as an admirer of his former master. After imbibing inspiration from these healthful fountains, he returned home, and executed some church paintings. But the casual arrival of one who brought some cartoons and crayon drawings from Parma gave a new turn to his ideas. Forgetting the grandeur of Buonarroti and the pure beauty of Raffaele, he aimed at those meretricious graces which have borrowed from the dexterity of Parmegianino, and the luscious pencil of Correggio, a fascination unsupported by their intrinsic merits, and pregnant with mischief to art. To him, however, belongs the credit of introducing into Lower Italy a harmonious application of light and shade, to which his early lamp studies from sculpture may have conduced.