Gianpaolo Cavagna seems in some way to have escaped the notice of Boschini, and even of Orlandi, who had bestowed so much commendation upon his rival. He ranks, in his native province, as high as Salmeggia, and he certainly appears to have possessed a still more enlarged genius, more decision, and more talent for extensive works. A pupil of Morone, the great portrait painter, as we have already mentioned, he evinced a taste for the Venetian School, attaching himself in particular to Paul Veronese, in whose style he conducted some of his best productions. He was ambitious of surpassing him likewise in point of design, which he assuredly did in his naked figures, exhibiting even the adult form with a degree of masterly power. He had acquired the best method of painting in fresco, in his native place, and he succeeded in it admirably, as appears from the choir of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he represented the Virgin received into Heaven, a very spirited and varied composition, abounding with figures of angels and of prophets, truly great; the distinguishing characteristic, perhaps, of this artist's genius. Nor did he appear to less advantage in oils, more particularly when the immediate vicinity of other celebrated painters put his talents to the test. Of this kind the most successful, perhaps, are his Daniel in the Lions' Den, and his picture of San Francesco receiving the stigmata, forming side pictures to one of the best altarpieces by Lorenzo Lotto at San Spirito; yet they are nevertheless worthy of that distinguished post. His Crucifixion, between various saints, placed at Santa Lucia, has been still more highly extolled as one of the finest productions the city has to boast, and preferred by many judges to any of the altarpieces of Talpino. I shall abstain from expressing an opinion upon a subject in which artists themselves would disagree, merely observing that it is more difficult to meet with inferior or careless pieces from the hand of Salmeggia than from Cavagna's. He had also a son a painter of the name of Francesco, called Cavagnuola, who, surviving his father, acquired some degree of celebrity. He attached himself wholly to the style of Gianpaolo, as well as certain foreigners sprung from the same school, such as Girolamo Grifoni, in whose productions we seem to trace the copy of a copy of the style of Paul. If the artists named Santa Croce belong to Bergamo, and to one family, as we are informed in the _Guida_ of Padua, we ought here to insert the name of Pietro Paolo, the least distinguished among the Santa Croce, but not unworthy of commemoration for one of his Madonnas at the Arena, and for other pictures at different churches in Padua, in all of which he appears attached to the school of Cavagna, or at least to the less mannered class of the Venetians.