Resembling Forabosco in diligence and delicacy of finish, though inferior to him in genius, we may mention his pupil Pietro Bellotti. By some he is reproached for his minuteness and dryness of style, which leads him to distinguish almost every hair, though always an exact and faithful transcriber of nature. Boschini considers him in the light of a prodigy, for having succeeded in uniting to so much diligence, a most exquisite delicacy in his tints, to a degree never before known. His compositions, more particularly his portraits and his caricatures, which are to be met with in galleries, are held in much esteem. Several I have seen in different places, even out of the limits of the state; two of them very excellent--portraits of an old man and an old woman, in possession of the Cavalier Melzi, at Milan, and such as are not to be exceeded by the most polished and exquisite specimens of Flemish art. At the same period flourished the Cavalier Carlo Ridolfi, a native of Vicenza, but who received his education and distinguished himself at Venice. His natural good sense led him to shun the peculiar style of his times, no less in writing than in painting; and we may observe the same character that is displayed in his "Lives of the Venetian Painters," written with equal fidelity and judgment, preserved also in his pictures. Thus his _Vizitazione_, painted for the church of the Ognissanti at Venice, has been much extolled; a piece that exhibits some novelty in the adaptation of the colours; a fine relief, and exactness in every part. Other specimens of him are to be met with in public places, both in Venice and throughout the state; but a great part of his productions were for private persons, consisting of portraits, half-length figures, and historical pieces. Ridolfi imbibed excellent principles of the art from Aliense, which he afterwards improved in Vicenza and Verona, by copying the best models he could find, and attending to perspective, to the belles lettres, and to other pursuits best calculated to form a learned artist. Such he likewise appears in the two volumes of his "Lives," which are at present extremely rare, and deserving of republication, either with the plates which I heard were still in existence at Bassano, or without them, since it is no very serious loss after all to remain ignorant of the features of celebrated men, provided we become acquainted with their virtues. Upon a comparison of Ridolfi's style of writing with that of Boschini, we might suppose that these authors flourished at two different epochs, though they were very nearly contemporary. Bayle's observation, indeed, may be considered correct, as applied to them; that there exists a certain mental, as well as physical epidemic; and as, in the last, every individual is not seized with the disorder, so, in the former, good sense, as evinced in thinking and in writing, does not become altogether extinct. Thus the Cav.