He appears to have written with the intention of rivalling and excelling Vasari. Whatever was the cause, Vasari was disliked by him, as may be gathered from the notes to his Lives, occasionally cited by the annotator of the Roman edition; and is charged by him with spleen and malignity, particularly in the life of Taddeo Zuccaro. In order to excel Vasari, it seems he chose an abstruse mode of writing, in opposition to the plain style of that author. The whole work, printed in Turin, is involved in its design, and instead of precepts, contains speculative metaphysical opinions, which tend more to raise disputes than to convey information. The language is incongruous and affected, and even the very titles to the chapters are interwoven with many absurdities, as that of the 12th, _Che la filosofia e il filosofare è disegno Metaforico similitudinario_. This style may perhaps impose on the ignorant, but cannot deceive the learned.[64] The latter do not esteem a writer for pedantic expressions adopted from the Greek and Latin authors; but for a correct mode of definition, for an accuracy of analysis, for a sagacity in tracing effects to their true causes, and for a manner strictly adapted to the subject. These qualities are not to be found in the works of Federigo, where we find philosophical expressions mingled with puerile reflections, as in the etymology of the word _disegno_, which after much circumlocution, he informs us, owes its derivation to _Segno di Dio_; and instead of affording any instructive maxims to youth, he presents them with a mass of sterile and ill directed speculations. Hence we may be said to derive more information from a single page of Vasari, than from this author's whole work. Both Mariette and Bottari have shewn the little esteem in which they held this work, by their correspondence, inserted in the 6th volume of the Lettere Pittoriche. Nor are his other two works of greater utility, one of which contains some arguments in the same style, which are proposed as a theme for disputation in the Academy of the Innominati, in Parma.