and Marini mentions them in one of his letters as a kind of phenomenon. Scanelli, who wrote about forty years after the death of Schedone, also confirms such an opinion; though to make the imitation complete, he would have wished a little more practice and solidity, in which I rather think he alludes to his perspective and design, not always quite correct. For the rest his figures, both in their character and their action, are very pleasing, while his colouring in fresco is very vivid and lively; in oils he is more serious, but more harmonious, though not always free from the ill effect produced by the bad grounds usual in the age of the Caracci. His pictures on a larger scale, such as his Pietà, now in the academy of Parma, are extremely rare, and also his history-pieces, as the Nativity of our Lord and that of the Virgin, placed for lateral ornaments to an altar-piece by Filippo Bellini. Of his Holy Families, and little sacred pieces, there are some remaining; such as are found in galleries being highly valuable, so much so, that Tiraboschi records the sum of 4,000 crowns having been required for one of them. The court of Naples is extremely rich in them, having, together with the other Farnesian pictures, obtained also those painted by Schedone, while in the service of Duke Ranuccio, his most liberal patron. This artist produced but little, being seduced by the love of gambling; nor did he survive very long after losing a large sum of money, about the end of the year 1615. The three following names belong to the school of the Caracci, also in regard to style. Giacomo Cavedone, born in Sassuolo, but absent from the state after the period of youth, was esteemed one of the best disciples of Lodovico. Giulio Secchiari, of Modena, resided also at Rome, and in Mantua, where he produced several excellent pictures for the court, which perished in the sack of 1630. What remains of him in his native place, and in particular the Death of the Virgin, in the subterranean part of the cathedral, with four crowns around, is calculated to give rise to lively regret, that Giulio should not be equally well known in different collections, with the other disciples of the Caracci. Camillo Gavassetti, likewise of Modena, may boast also of a greater degree of merit than of fame; no less because he died young, than because of his attaching himself to works in fresco, which, confined to the place in which they are produced, confine also the reputation of the artist. He is better known in Piacenza than in Modena, Parma, or, indeed, any other city. One of his paintings adorns the presbytery of the church of S. Antonino, accompanied with figures taken from the Apocalypse, so finely executed as to induce Guercino, when coming to Piacenza to complete his finest work, to bestow the highest commendation upon it; and it is still enumerated among the chief ornaments of that rich and ornate city. There is something so grand,