Matteo Ingoli, a native of Ravenna, resided from early youth, until the period of his immature decease, in the city of Venice. He sprung from the school of Luigi del Friso, and proposed for himself, says Boschini, Paul Veronese and Palma as his models. If I mistake not, however, he aspired to a more solid, but less beautiful style, as far as we can gather from one of his pictures at the Corpus Domini, from his Supper of our Lord at San Apollinare, and from others of his works; in all which we trace the hand of precision and assiduity. He was also a good architect, and terminated his days during one of those awful periods in which the Venetian state was visited by the plague, adding another instance of loss to the fine arts, similar to those which we have noticed in other schools. Another victim to the same contagion was Pietro Damini, of Castelfranco, who, it is averred, had he survived a little longer, would have displayed the powers of a Titian; an expression we are to receive as somewhat hyperbolical. He acquired the art of colouring from Gio. Batista Novelli, a good scholar of Palma, who, more for amusement than for gain, ornamented Castelfranco and the adjacent places with several well executed pieces. Damini next devoted much time to the theory of the art, and to the study of the best engravings, upon which he modelled his design. By this method, it is said, that he freed himself from the shackles of the mannerists, though it gave to his colours a degree of crudity; and in truth this is a defect that strikes the eye in many of his productions. Numerous specimens remain at Padua, where he established himself at the age of twenty; several at Vicenza, at Venice, and still more in Castelfranco, where his altarpiece of the Blessed Simone Stoch at Santa Maria, is highly estimated, as well as the Tabernacle surrounded with twelve histories, from both the Old and New Testaments; a novel idea, and executed with real taste. His style is elegant and pleasing, but not uniformly excellent. He is observed to have frequently changed his manner, in aspiring to reach a higher degree of perfection in his art. We might, in some instances, pronounce him an excellent naturalist; in others more of an adept in ideal beauty, as we gather from his picture of the Crucifixion at Santo di Padova, which displays rare beauty and harmony combined, though he did not live long enough to produce others of equal merit. He died early, and at a short interval his brother Giorgio, seized by the same disorder, followed him to the tomb, an artist excellent in portrait, and pictures with small figures.