With a similar instance we shall commence the series of artists of Lucca: the two brothers, Ippolito and Giovanni Marracci, obtained equal applause in very different branches of the art; the former was a painter of architecture, the latter of figures; and of him only we shall here speak. Although little known beyond Lucca, he is reckoned among the eminent scholars and most successful imitators of Pietro da Cortona; and merits this name, either when he painted in fresco, as in the cupola of S. Ignatius, at S. Giovanni; or when he wrought in oil, as he did in several pictures in the possession of the brotherhood of S. Lorenzo, in the collegiate church of S. Michael, and in other places. With equal success two other artists, natives of Lucca, who had been educated in his school, became imitators, for a period, of Pier Cortona. These were Giovanni Coli and Filippo Gherardi, who were trained in the school of their native place, and resembled each other no less in style than in disposition; so that though they usually painted in the same piece, all their joint labours appear the work of a single artist. They afterwards adopted a manner that participates of the Venetian and Lombard schools; and in this style they painted the vast ceiling of the library of S. Giorgio Maggiore at Venice. Rome possesses some of their stupendous works in the church of the Lucchesi, and in the magnificent Colonna gallery. The most celebrated picture with which they ornamented their native place was the fresco of the tribune of the church of S. Martin, and next to it that in S. Matthew's, which they decorated with three oil pictures. After the death of Coli, his companion resided and continued to paint in Lucca: the whole cloister of the Carmelite monastery was painted by him alone.