[Footnote 14: Vasari, from whom several epochs are taken, is full of errors in dates, as may be every where perceived. See Bottari's note on tom. ii. p. 79. The same observation applies generally to other authors, as Bottari remarks in a note on _Lettere Pittoriche_, tom. iv. p. 366. A similar objection is made to the Dictionary of P. Orlandi in another letter, tom. ii. p. 318, where it is termed "a useful work, but so full of errors, that one can derive no benefit from it without possessing the books there quoted." After three editions of this work, a fourth was printed in Venice, in 1753, corrected and enlarged by Guarienti, "but enough still remains to be done after his additions, even to increase it twofold." Bottari, Lett. Pitt. tom. iii. p. 353. See also Crespi _Vite de' Pittori Bolognesi_, p. 50. No one, who has not perused this book, would believe how often he defaces Orlandi in presuming to correct him; multiplying artists for every little difference with which authors wrote the name of the same man. Thus Pier Antonio Torre, and Antonio Torri, are with him two different men. Many of the articles, however, added by him, relating to artists unknown to P. Orlandi, are useful; so that this second Dictionary ought to be consulted with caution, not altogether rejected. The last edition, printed at Florence, in two volumes, contains the names of many painters, either lately dead, or still living, and often of very inferior merit, and on this account is little noticed in my history. This Dictionary, moreover, affords little satisfaction to the reader concerning the old masters, unless he possess a work printed at Florence in twelve volumes, entitled _Serie degli Uomini più illustri in Pittura_, to which the articles in it often refer. The Dizionario Portatile, by Mr. La Combe, is also a book of reference, not very valuable to those who look for exact information. We give a single instance of his inaccuracy in regard to the elder Palma; but our emendations have been chiefly directed towards the writers of Italy, from whom foreigners have, or ought to have borrowed, in writing respecting our artists.] [Footnote 15: See Mr. Richardson's _Treatise on Painting_, tom. ii. p. 58; and M. D'Argenville's _Abrégé de la Vie des plus fameux Peintres_, tom. i. p. 65.]