Spectacles of this sort became afterwards more common to the citizens; for the Medici, on commencing their domination over a people whom they feared, affected popularity, like the Roman Cæsars, by promoting public hilarity. Hence, not only on extraordinary occasions, such as the elevation of Clement VII. to the papal chair, of Alexander, and of Cosmo to the chief magistracy of their country, on the marriage of the latter, on that of Giuliano and of Lorenzo de' Medici, and on the arrival of Charles V.; not only on such occasions, but frequently at other times, they instituted tournaments, masquerades, and representations, of which the decorations were magnificent, such as cars, robes, and scenery. In this improved state of every thing conducive to exquisite embellishment, industry became excited, and the number of painters and ornamental artists increased. Aristotile, to return to him, was always much employed; his perspectives were in great request in public places; his scenes in the theatre: the populace, unaccustomed to those ocular deceptions, were astonished; and it seemed to them as if they could ascend the steps, enter the edifices, and approach the balconies and windows in the pictures. The long life of Aristotile, coeval with the best epoch of painting, permitted him to serve the ruling family and his country, until his old age, when Salviati and Bronzino began to be preferred to him. He died in 1551. While the city of Florence acquired so much glory by the genius of her artists, the other parts of the state afforded materials for future history, chiefly through the assistance of the Roman school. This happened more especially after 1527, when the sack of Rome dispersed the school of Raffaello and its young branches. Giulio Romano trained Benedetto Pagni at Pescia, who ought to be noticed among the assistants of his master at Mantua. If we credit some late writers, his native place possesses many of his works: but I acquiesce in the opinion of Sig. Ansaldi, in refusing to admit any of them as genuine, except the façade of the habitation of the Pagni family, now injured by time, and the picture of the Marriage of Cana in the Collegiate church, which is not his best production. Pistoia is indebted to Gio. Francesco Penni, or perhaps to Fattore, for a respectable scholar: this was Lionardo, an artist much employed in Naples and in Rome, where he was named Il Pistoia. I find him surnamed Malatesta by some, Guelfo by others; but I suspect that his true family name is to be collected from an inscription on an Annunciation in the little chapel of the canons of Lucca, which runs thus, _Leonardus Gratia Pistoriensis_. I am indebted to Sig. T. F. Bernardi above mentioned for this fact: and the picture is worthy of a descendant of Raffaello. I do not know that there is a single trace of Lionardo remaining in his native place: at the village of Guidi, in the diocese of Pistoia, one of his pictures is to be seen in the church of S.