Lodovico Trasi, of Ascoli, is deserving of particular notice. He was for several years a fellow disciple of Maratta in the school of Sacchi, and was afterwards desirous of becoming his scholar. After studying some time in his academy, he returned to Ascoli, where he has left a great number of works both public and private, in various styles. In some of his smaller pictures he discovers a good Marattesque style; but in his fresco and altarpieces he is negligent, and adheres much to Sacchi, yet in a manner that discovers traces of Cortona. His picture of S. Niccolo at the church of S. Cristoforo is beautiful, and is one of the pieces which he finished with more than usual care. He has there represented the enfranchisement of a slave, at the moment the pious youth is serving at his master's table. There are some remarkable pictures of this artist in the cathedral, painted in distemper, particularly that of the martyrdom of S. Emidio. Trasi was the instructor of D. Tommaso Nardini, who continued on his master's death the decoration of the churches of the city, and his best work is perhaps in S. Angelo Magno, a church of the Olivetani. The perspective was by Agostino Collaceroni of Bologna, a scholar of Pozzi. Nardini supplied the figures, representing the mysteries of the Apocalypse and other scriptural events. It displays great spirit and harmony, richness of colouring and facility, which are the distinguishing characteristics of this master, and are perhaps better expressed in this picture than in any other. We may add to the two before mentioned painters, Silvestro Mattei, who studied under Maratta, Giuseppe Angelini, the scholar of Trasi, and Biagio Miniera, also of Ascoli, whom Orsini has noticed in his _Guida_. There flourished about the same time in the neighbouring city of Fermo, two Ricci, scholars of Maratta, who were probably instructed before going to Rome by Lorenzino di Fermo, a good artist, though doubtful of what school, and who is said to have painted the picture of S. Catharine at the church of the Conventuals, and other pictures in the adjoining territories. The one was named Natale, the other Ubaldo; the latter was superior to the former, and is much extolled for his S. Felice, which he painted for the church of the Capucins, in his native place. He did not often pass the bounds of mediocrity, which is frequently the case with artists residing at a distance from a capital, and who have not the incitement to emulation and an opportunity of studying good examples. The same observation is, I think, applicable also to another scholar of Maratta, Giuseppe Oddi, of Pesaro, where one of his pictures remains in the church della Carità. We shall now return to the metropolis.