Portrait painting, the school of the best artists who aspire to fidelity of representation, was greatly promoted by Passignano, who instructed Filippo Furini, surnamed Sciameroni, the father of the celebrated Francesco. He also taught the art to Domenico and Valore Casini, two brothers celebrated by Baldinucci: Valore was remarkable for a free pencil, and was a faithful copyist of every lineament. The capital is filled with his portraits. Cristofano Allori painted portraits, both on commission and for exercising his hand in the delineation of the most beautiful forms. His portraits on canvass are reckoned valuable, even when the subjects are not known: this is the case with that in possession of the senator Orlandini; and some on small pieces of copper, in the grand Medicean collection. Cerrini, among his disciples, followed his steps; he is, I think, also admitted into that museum. Giovanni Batista Stefaneschi, a monk of Monte Senario, a scholar of Comodi, and an excellent miniature painter, was conspicuous among the painters of portraits and copyists. Justus Subtermans, a native of Antwerp, who was educated by William de Vos, was also greatly admired. Having fixed his residence at Florence, in the time of Cosmo II., he was retained by the court to the end of the reign of Cosmo III.; and went to other princes in Germany and Italy, who were ambitious of having a specimen of a portrait painter, esteemed little inferior to Vandyck. He was much esteemed by the latter, who requested his portrait, prefacing his request by sending him his own. Peter Paul Rubens likewise honoured him, and presented him with one of his own historical pictures, regarding him as an honour to their country. Subtermans painted all the living members of the Medicean family, in a variety of attitudes; and when Ferdinand II. ascended the throne, while still a young man, Subtermans executed a stupendous picture, wholly composed of portraits. He represented in it the ceremony of swearing allegiance to the new sovereign; and pourtrayed him not only with his mother and grandmother, but the senators and nobility who were present. This picture was very large: it has been engraved on copper and still remains in the gallery. The artist had a neatness and elegance of pencil that appeared extraordinary even in the school to which he belonged; and possessed moreover a peculiar talent of ennobling every countenance without injuring the likeness. It was his practice to study the peculiar and characteristic air of the person, and to impart it to his work; so that when he would sometimes conceal the face of a portrait, the bystanders could with certainty tell whom it represented, from the disposition of the hands and the figure.