conducted in Venice, or perhaps in any other parts, and which frequently present us with fine imitations, but never with plagiarisms. He did not early acquire a good knowledge of design, but he afterwards succeeded in this object, which he cultivated with extreme assiduity in the academies, even in mature age. The forms of his figures are composed with beauty, dignity, and grace, like those of Paul Veronese; the attitudes are more than usually natural, prompt, and varied, and the composition appears to have been managed with truth and with good sense. Although rapid in the handling, he did not abuse his celerity of hand, as so many artists have been known to do. His figures are accurately designed, and appear starting from the canvass, most frequently coloured with a very beautiful azure, in which they shine conspicuous over all. Such pieces as he conducted in fresco, still preserve the native freshness of their tints; while some of his others seem to have suffered, owing to the badness of the grounds, or of the body of colour, which was weaker in the later than in the earliest Venetian artists. The amenity of Ricci's style soon procured for him disciples, in the list of whom Marco, his nephew, greatly distinguished himself, and subsequently devoting himself to the composition of landscape, he accompanied his master upon his travels, employing himself a good deal, both at Paris and in London. Gasparo Diziani, his fellow countryman, was an artist who excelled in his facility of painting large theatrical works, and in that line was employed in Germany. He was, moreover, a very pleasing composer of pictures for private ornament, several of which are now to be met with in the collections of the Sig. Silvestri and Sig. Casalini at Rovigo. Francesco Fontebasso, a pupil also of Bastiano, succeeded, notwithstanding some degree of crudeness, in acquiring celebrity in his day, both in Venice and the adjacent cities.