An artist named Lorenzo, and familiarly Lorenzetto, was the father of another family of painters: he had a son named Ambrogio, who is surnamed Lorenzetti by historians. A large picture by this artist, on which he subscribes himself _Ambrosius Laurentii_, is to be seen in the public palace, and may be designated a poem of moral precepts. The vices of a bad government are there represented under different aspects, and with appropriate symbols; accompanied by verses explanatory of their nature and consequences. The Virtues, too, are there personified with suitable emblems: and the whole is adapted to form governors and politicians for the republic, animated by the spirit of genuine patriotism alone. Had there been a greater variety in the countenances of the figures, and a superior arrangement in the piece, it would have been little inferior to the finest pictures in the Campo Santo of Pisa. Siena possesses many of his frescos and large pictures; but they are not so surprising as his smaller works, in which he appears as the forerunner of B. Angelico, whom we have commended in another place. I have observed nothing similar in his contemporaries; and it possesses a nationality of character that prevents his being confounded with the followers of Giotto: the ideas, the colouring, and the draperies, are wholly different. In a similar taste is a picture in the possession of Sig. Abate Ciaccheri, librarian to the university of Siena, where Ambrogio painted some very original works, in which he very far surpassed the Orcagni. His style was admired in Florence; where, to please his friends, who were desirous of seeing a specimen of his art, he painted several pieces from the life of S. Nicholas, in the church of S. Proculus, that were afterwards transferred to the abbey.