But it is the church of S. Sigismondo which inspires us with the loftiest ideas of this artist, in every view. We can imagine nothing more simply beautiful, and more consistent with the genius of the best age, than his picture of St. Cecilia, in the act of playing on the organ, while St. Catherine is seen standing near her, and above them a group of angels, apparently engaged with their musical instruments and with their voices, in pouring forth in concert with the two innocent virgins, strains worthy of Paradise. This painting, with its surrounding decoration of cherub figures, displays his mastery in grace. Still he appears to no less advantage in point of strength in his figures of the Prophets, grandly designed, for the same place; although he seems more anxious to invest them with dignity of feature and of action, than to give strength and muscle to their proportions. Above all, he shone with most advantage in the grand cupola, with which few in Italy will bear a comparison, and still fewer can be preferred for the abundance, variety, distribution, grandeur, and gradation of the figures, and for the harmony and grand effect of the whole. In this empyrean, this vast concourse of the blessed, belonging to the Old and New Testament, there is no figure that may not be recognised by its symbols, and that is not seen in perfection from its own point of view, whence all appear of the natural proportion, although they are on a scale of seven braccia in height. Such a work is one of those rare monuments which serve to prove, that it is possible for a great genius to execute rapidly and well; it was wholly conducted by him in seven months; and to satisfy the workmen, who were more sensible of the brevity of the time than the merit of the work, he obtained a written acknowledgment from Soiaro and Giulio Campi, that he had achieved a laudable task. Bernardino was younger than either of them, or than Boccaccino, and the citizens took pleasure in placing him in competition with one or the other of them in their public works, in order that a noble emulation might call forth all their powers, nor suffer them to slumber. Nevertheless, the Nativity of our Lord, at S. Domenico, has been pronounced his masterpiece; a kind of abstract, in which he aimed at comprehending the various excellences of the art. This, at least, is the opinion of Lamo, who composed a diffuse life of this artist; such as to render his information far the most copious we possess upon the subject. He also compiled a correct catalogue of his works, executed both in his native place and at Milan, where he passed a great part of his time, and of those he painted in foreign parts. We find a great number of portraits of princes, as well as of private persons, enumerated; his skill in this branch of the art, in which very few equalled him, greatly adding to his fame and fortune. The precise period of his decease is not known, though it must have been somewhere towards 1590, at which