We have next to treat of Pietro Liberi, an artist who succeeded Padovanino in sustaining the honour of his native place. He ranks among the great men of his art, and is esteemed by many the most learned in point of design, of all who adorned the Venetian School. From his early studies of the antique at Rome, of Michelangiolo, and of Raffaello, of Coreggio at Parma, and of all the most excellent masters in the city of Venice, he was led to form a style partaking of every school; a style that pleased in Italy, but far more in Germany, and which obtained for him the titles of Count and Cavalier, with wealth to support them handsomely in Venice. And, in fact, to estimate his merits rightly, we ought not to consider him as a painter in one style, but in many. For according to his own confession, he employed for the eye of true judges a free and rapid pencil, not very studious of finish; for the less intelligent he worked with a very careful one, which bestowed the last touch upon every part, distinguishing the very hairs in such a manner that one might number them; and these paintings he executed on panels of cypress wood. Most probably the fire of this man's genius became quenched whenever he attempted to paint slowly, and his pieces were certainly less perfect, which is known to have occurred to several painters in fresco. But with the exception of these enthusiasts, who are extremely rare, and always adduced by the indolent in defence of their haste, an observing diligence is the perfection of every artist; and even those two thunderbolts, let us call them, of art, Tintoretto and Giordano, where they most practised it, succeeded most in charming the eye of taste. The style of this artist may also be distinguished into the sublime and beautiful. He produced fewer specimens, however, in the former, of which Venice boasts a Slaughter of the Innocents, Vicenza a Noah just landed from the Ark, Bergamo the Great Deluge, in which the shore is said to have been the work of M. Montagne; the whole of them painted for churches, robust in their design, displaying fine variety of foreshortenings and of attitudes, with naked parts in grand character, and more in emulation of the Caracci than of Michelangiolo. He even abused the singular skill that he thus displayed; drawing the Supreme Deity by an unprecedented example, without the least drapery, in the church of Santa Caterina at Vicenza, an error of judgment which detracts from the worth of one of his most beautiful productions. In a lighter character he produced several pictures for private ornament, sometimes consisting of fables familiar to us, and sometimes of _capricci_ and allegorical subjects, too obscure even for OEdipus himself to unravel. Most frequently he drew naked figures of Venus, in the taste of Titian; and these are esteemed his masterpieces, which have acquired for him, indeed, the name of Libertino. It is asserted, that being unequal to the