Pope Urban VIII. by whom they were knighted. Jacopino del Conte, who is also noticed in the _Abecedario Pittorico_, under the name of Jacopo del Conte, and considered not as the same individual, but as two distinct artists, was little employed in Florence, but in great request in Rome. He was eminent as a portrait painter to all the Popes and the principal nobility of Rome, from the time of Paul III. to that of Clement VIII., in whose pontificate he died. His ability in composition may be discovered in the frescos in S. Gio. Decollato, and especially in the picture of the Deposition in that place, a work which is reckoned among his finest productions. There the competition of his most distinguished countrymen stimulated his exertions for distinction. He was an imitator of Michelangiolo, but in a manner so free, and a colouring so different, that it seems the production of another school. Scipione Gaetano, whom we shall consider in the third book of our history, was his scholar. Of Domenico Beceri, a respectable pupil of Puligo, and of some others of little note, I have nothing further to add. Angiolo Bronzino was another friend of Vasari, nearly of the same age, and was enumerated among the more eminent artists, from the grace of his countenances, and the agreeableness of his compositions. He is likewise esteemed as a poet. His poems were printed along with those of Berni; and some of his letters on painting are preserved in the collection of Bottari.[204] Although the scholar and follower of Pontormo, he also recals Michelangiolo to our recollection. His frescos in the old palace are praised, adorning a chapel, on the walls of which he represented the Fall of Manna, and the Scourge of the Serpents, histories full of power and spirit; although the paintings on the ceiling do not correspond with them, being deficient in the line of perspective. Some of his altar-pieces are to be seen in the churches of Florence, several of them feebly executed, with figures of angels, whose beauty appears too soft and effeminate. There are many, on the other hand, extremely beautiful, such as his Pietà at S. Maria Nuova, and likewise his Limbo at Santa Croce, in an altar belonging to the noble family of Riccasoli. This picture is better suited for an academy of design, from the naked figure, than for a church; but the painter was too much attached to Michelangiolo to avoid imitating him even in this error. This picture has been lately very well repaired. Many of his portraits are in Italian collections of paintings, which are praiseworthy for their truth and spirit; but their character is frequently diminished by the colour of the flesh, which sometimes partakes of a leaden hue, at other times appears of a dead white, on which the red appears like rouge. But a yellowish tint is the predominant colour in his pictures, and his greatest fault is a want of relief.