Lanzi's first studies were pursued in the Jesuits' College at Fermo, where an Italian Canzone, written in praise of the Beata Vergine, is said to have acquired for him, as a youth of great promise, the highest degree of regard. Under the care of his spiritual instructor, father Raimondo Cunich, Lanzi likewise became deeply versed in all the excellences of classical literature, not as a vain parade of words and syllables; for along with the technical skill of the scholar, he imbibed the spirit of the ancient writers. In his succeeding philosophical and mathematical studies he was assisted by Father Boscovich, one of the first mathematicians of his day. Thus to a keen and fertile intellect, animated by enthusiasm for true poetry and the beauties of art, was added that regular classical and scientific learning, inducing a love of order and of truth, capable of applying the clear logic derived from Euclid to advantage, in subjects of a less tangible and demonstrative nature. The value of such preliminary acquirements to the examination of antiquarian and scientific remains, which can only be conducted on uncertain data and a calculation of possibilities, as in ancient specimens of art, can bear no question; and of this truth Lanzi was fully aware. To feel rightly, to reason clearly, to decide upon probabilities, to distinguish degrees, resemblances, and differences, comparing and weighing the whole with persevering accuracy; these were among the essentials which Lanzi conceived requisite to prepare a writer upon works of art. These qualities, too, will be found finely relieved and elevated by frequent and appropriate passages of eloquent feeling; flowing from that sincere veneration for his subject, and that love which may be termed the religion of the art to which he became so early attached. How intimately such a spirit is connected with the best triumphs of the art of painting, is seen in the angelic faces of Da Vinci, of Raffaello, and Coreggio; and the same enthusiasm must have been felt by a true critic, such as Lanzi. Far, however, from impeding him in the acquisition of his stores of antiquarian knowledge, and in his scientific arrangements, his enthusiasm conferred upon him only an incredible degree of diligence and despatch. He was at once enabled to decipher the age and character, to arrange in its proper class, and to give the most exact description of every object of art which passed under his review.