prolific in the proportion of its population; its artists were numerous while it had many citizens; but on the decrease of the latter, its professors of the fine arts also diminished, until every trace of a school was lost. The accounts of the early painters of Siena are rather confused during the three first centuries by the plurality of the Guidi, the Mini, the Lippi, the Vanni (abbreviations of Giacomo, Filippo, Giovanni), and such sort of proper names as are used without a surname: hence it is not sufficient to peruse only such accounts; we must reflect on them and compare them. They are scattered in many histories of the city, especially in Ugurgieri, who was pleased to entitle his work _Le Pompe Sanesi_; in the Diary of Girolamo Gigli; and in several works of the indefatigable Cav. Gio. Pecci, whom we have before noticed. Many manuscripts, rich in anecdotes of painting, still remain in the libraries: of this number are the histories of Sigismondo Tizio, of Castiglione, who lived at Siena from 1482 to 1528; _the Cathedral of Siena_, minutely described by Alfonzo Landi; the _Treatise on old_ _Paintings_ of Giulio Mancini; and some _Memoirs_ of Uberto Benvoglienti, whom Muratori denominates _diligentissimus rerum suæ patriæ investigator_. From these, and other sources,[248] P. della Valle has drawn what is contained in the Lettere Sanesi, and repeated in the notes on Vasari concerning the school of Siena. By the work of Della Valle it has acquired a celebrity to which it has long been entitled. I take him for my guide in the documents and anecdotes which he has given to the public;[249] in the older authorities I follow Vasari and Baldinucci in many circumstances, but dissent from them in others: and hostile to error, and anxious for the truth, I shall pursue the same plan with regard to the historians of the school of Siena. I shall omit many names of old masters, of whom no works now remain, and here and there shall add a few modern artists who have come to my knowledge, by the examination of pictures, or by the perusal of books.