[Footnote 209: Vasari calls him Michele Fiorentino, and the painter of the Slaughter of the Innocents, which we have noticed at page 187. Orlandi makes him the father of Cherubino, an assertion which is not contradicted by Bottari. I follow Baglione, the contemporary of Cherubino, who says that he was the son of Alberto Alberti, an eminent engraver on copper.] [Footnote 210: Vasari writes the name _da Carigliano_, in which he has been followed by other writers on the art, including myself, until I was informed by Sig. Ansaldi that it ought really to be written _Cutigliano_, taken from a considerable territory in the Pistoiese.] [Footnote 211: Tom. vi. p. 25.] FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. _Cigoli and his associates improve the style of Painting._ Whilst the Florentines regarded Michelangiolo and his imitators as their models, they experienced the fate of the poets of the fifteenth century, who fixed their eyes on Petrarca and his followers alone; they contracted a strong similarity of style, and differed from each other only according to their individual talents and genius. As we have above remarked, they began to exhibit some diversity after the age of Titi; but they were still languid colourists, and required to be impelled into another career. About 1580 the period had at length arrived, when they began to abandon the manner of their countrymen for that of foreign artists; and then, as we shall have occasion to shew in treating of this epoch, the Florentine styles became firm and varied. This revolution originated with two young artists, Lodovico Cigoli and Gregorio Pagani. We learn from Baldinucci, that, attracted by the celebrity of Barocci, and a picture which he had recently sent from Urbino to Arezzo, which is now in the royal gallery at Florence, they went together to see it; they examined it attentively, and were so captivated with the style, that they immediately renounced the manner of their master. Passignano followed their steps, continues Baldinucci, and Cigoli, in his company, took a second journey as far as Perugia, when Barocci had completed his celebrated Deposition from the Cross; but here the historian fell into a chronological error, inasmuch as Bellori, the accurate writer of Barocci's life, describes his picture at Perugia as anterior to that at Arezzo by several years. In whatever way the mistake ought to be cleared up, it is certain that Passignano promoted the views of Cigoli. Their example turned the rising generation from the old manner to a more vigorous style. This was more especially the case with Empoli, with Cav. Curradi, and some of those above mentioned, who were followed by Cristofano Allori, and Rosselli, artists that transmitted the new method to their new disciples. They did not, however, imitate Barocci so much as Correggio, who was the model of Barocci. Unable to visit Lombardy, they studied the few copies of his pictures, and still fewer originals,