artist, is not wholly to be despised, since he formed it on those of the various professors then living in Rome, as Winckelmann has observed (tom. i. p. 450); and, if these persons, as it is pretended, have erred in their judgment on the Greek sculptors, they have certainly not erred in their estimate of modern painters, particularly Luti, to whom I imagine Pascoli, from esteem and intimacy, deferred more than to any other artist. We have from Bellori other lives, written with more learning and criticism, some of which are supposed to be lost. He had originally applied himself to painting, but deserted that art, as we may conjecture from Pascoli (_vita del Canini_), and attached himself to poetry, and the study of antiquities: and his skill in both arts manifests itself in the lives he has left, which are few, but interspersed with interesting and minute particulars of the characters of the painters and their works. In his plan, he informs us he has followed the advice of Niccolo Poussin. He composed also a "Description of the figures painted by Raffaello, in the churches of the Vatican;" a tract which contains some severe reflections on Vasari,[2] but is nevertheless highly useful. We also find a profusion of entertaining anecdotes in Taja, in his "Description of the Vatican;" and in Titi, in his account of the pictures, sculpture, and architecture of Rome. This work has recently been republished, with additions; and we shall occasionally quote it under the name of the _Guide_. Pesaro is indebted for a similar _Guide_ to Signor Becci, and Ascoli and Perugia to Signor Baldassare Orsini, a celebrated architect. We have also the _Lettere Perugine_ of Sig. Dottore Annibale Mariotti, which treat of the early painters of Perugia, with a store of information and critical acumen that render them highly valuable. To these may also be added, the _Risposta_ of the above named Sig. Orsini, whom I regret to see entering on Etruscan ground, as he there repeats many ancient errors, which have been long exploded by common consent: in other points it is a treatise worth perusal. If we turn to _Descriptions_, we have them of several periods, as that of the Basilica Loretana, and that of Assisi, composed by P. Angeli; and the account of the Duomo of Orvieto, written by P. della Valle; and the works on the churches of S. Francesco di Perugia, and S. Pietro di Fano, by anonymous writers. The Abbate Colucci has favoured us with recent notices on various artists of Piceno and Umbria, and Urbino, in his _Antichità Picene_, extended, as far as my observation goes, to tom. XXXI.[3] The learned authors whom I have named, and others to whom I shall occasionally refer, have furnished the chief materials of my present treatise, although I have myself collected a considerable part from artists and lovers of art, either in conversation, or in my correspondence. Thus far in the way of introduction.