Three masters who died successively in the pontificate of Pius VI. seem to require from me more than a transient notice, and with them I shall conclude the series of historical painters of the fifth epoch. I shall first commemorate the Cav. Raffaello Mengs, from whom our posterity may perhaps date a new and more happy era of the art. He was born in Saxony, and brought to Rome by his father while yet a boy, and was at that time skilled in miniature, and was a careful and correct draughtsman. On his arrival in Rome, his father employed him in copying the works of Raffaello, and chastised the young artist for every fault in his work, with an incredible severity, or rather inhumanity, inflicting on him even corporeal punishment, and reducing his allowance of food. Being thus compelled to study perfection, and endowed with a genius to appreciate it and perceive it, he acquired a consummate taste in art; he communicated to Winckelmann very important materials for his _Storia delle belle arti_, and was himself the author of many profound and valuable essays on the fine arts, which have materially contributed to improve the taste of the present age. They have different titles, but all the same aim, the discrimination of the real perfection of art.[91] The artist, as characterized by Mengs, may be compared to the orator of Cicero, and both are endued by their authors with an ideal perfection, such as the world has never seen, and will probably never see; and it is the real duty of an instructor to recommend excellence, that in striving to attain it, we may at least acquire a commendable portion of it. Considered in this point of view, I should defend several of his writings, where in the opinion of others he seems to assume a dictatorial tone, in the judgment he passes on Guido, Domenichino, and the Caracci; the very triumvirate whom he proposes as models in the art. Mengs assuredly was not so infatuated as to hope to surpass these great men, but because he knew that no one does so well but that it might be done still better, he shews where they attained the summit of art, and where they failed. The artist, therefore, described by Mengs, and to whose qualifications he also aspired, and was anxious that all should do the same, ought to unite in himself the design and beauty of the Greeks, the expression and composition of Raffaello, the chiaroscuro and grace of Coreggio, and, to complete all, the colouring of Titian. This union of qualities Mengs has analyzed with equal elegance and perspicuity, teaching the artist how to form himself on that ideal beauty, which is itself never realised. If, on some occasions, he appears too enthusiastic, or in some degree obscure, it cannot excite our surprise, as he wrote in a foreign language, and was not much accustomed to composition. His ideas therefore stood in need of a refined scholar to render them clear and intelligible; and this advantage he would have