Leoni, who resided in Cremona, was a disciple of the Griffoni, and the artificer of two very beautiful desks, preserved in the Ducal Museum at Modena, as well as Paltronieri and Mazzelli, who introduced the art into Romagna, where it still continues to flourish. We there meet with altars, that equally deceive the eye by their colour, and the touch by the freshness of the marble. But the most celebrated pupil of the Griffoni was a priest called Gio. Massa, who, together with Gio. Pozzuoli, produced wonderful specimens of the art in his native place, in the adjacent cities, in Guastalla, Novellara, and elsewhere. The priest proved equally successful in drawing distant views, gardens, and in particular architecture, besides adorning with it tablets, and coverings of altars, in such a manner as to reach the very perfection of the art. The most dignified objects possessed by Rome were those which he most delighted in for his views; such as the façade of the temple of the Vatican, its colonnade, and its piazza. It appears the Duke of Guastalla took singular pleasure in similar works; and at his desire were prepared those two little tables, in the possession of Signor Alberto Pio, cited by Tiraboschi, and which were, perhaps, the masterpieces of Massa. No objects appeared to me more remarkable than such works abounding almost in every church throughout those parts; and it would be very desirable that the plan of representing architectural views, by this process, should become more frequent. Massa also included figures, the honour of perfecting which has fallen upon Florence; a subject I have treated in my first volume, (p. 346). I shall merely notice here, that after the practice of modelling had been brought to vie with sculpture; and after engraving upon wood had so well counterfeited works of design, we have to record this third invention, belonging to a state of no great dimensions. Such a fact is calculated to bring into still higher estimation the geniuses who adorned it. There is nothing of which man is more ambitious, than of being called the inventor of new arts: nothing is more flattering to his intellect, or draws a broader line between him and the animals that are incapable of such inventions, or of carrying them beyond the limits prescribed by instinct. In short, nothing was held in higher reverence among the ancients; and hence it is, that Virgil, in his Elysian fields, represented the band of inventors with their brows crowned with white chaplets, equally distinct in merit as in rank, from the more vulgar shades around them. THE SCHOOL OF PARMA. EPOCH I. _The Ancients._