Daniele is one among those distinguished Italians who are hardly known beyond their native place. He possessed, however, rare genius, and, instructed by Cerano, and afterwards by the best of the Procaccini, undoubtedly surpassed the first, and in the opinion of many likewise the second, though he did not live to reach the age of forty. He had great penetration in learning, and equal facility in executing, selecting the best part of every master he studied, and knowing how to reject the worst. Familiar with the maxims of the Caracci school, even without frequenting it, he adopted and practised them with success. He shews this in his distribution of colours, and in the varied expression of his countenances; select and careful in disposing them according to the prevailing passions of the mind; and above all, admirable in catching the beautiful and devotional spirit that ought to inspire the heads of saints. In the distribution of his figures he at once observes a natural and well judged order, so that no one would wish to behold them placed otherwise than they are. Their drapery is finely varied, and very splendid in the more imposing characters of the piece. His colouring is extremely powerful, no less in oil than in fresco; and in the highly ornamented church of La Passione, for which he painted his grand Descent from the Cross, he left many portraits of distinguished cardinals, all composed in the best Titian taste. He is indeed one of those rare geniuses who delight in being constant rivals of themselves, calling forth their highest energies in each production, in order that they may in some way surpass the last; geniuses, who know how to correct in their later paintings the errors they committed in their first, exhibiting in them the full maturity of those excellences which they discovered in their early attempts. His last pieces, consisting of acts from the life of S. Brunone, at the Certosa, in Milan, are of all the most admired. That of the Dottor Parigino is more particularly celebrated, in which, having raised himself on his bier, he declares his state of reprobation. What desperation he exhibits! what horror in the faces of the beholders! Nor is that of the Duke of Calabria less excellent, where, in going to the chase, he meets with the holy hermit, a picture upon which the artist inscribed, _Daniel Crispus Mediolanensis pinxit hoc templum_. _An. 1629._ This was the year before his death, as he was unhappily cut off by the plague of 1630, together with his whole family.