His altar-pieces in oil are extremely rare; the Pentecost at S. Francesco di Rovigo, and the S. Antonio at S. Maria in Vado di Ferrara, are the most copious, and perhaps the most celebrated which he produced. He was employed also for collections, mostly on tender and graceful subjects; but there too he is rarely to be met with. His diligence, the commissions of his sovereigns, the study of architecture, a profession in which he served Pope Julius III. and Duke Ercole II., his brief career, all prevented him from leaving many productions for the ornament of cabinets. In his style of figures he had no successors: in the art of decorating with feigned bassi-relievi, colonnades, cornices, niches, and similar architectural labours, he was rivalled by Bartolommeo Faccini, who in that manner embellished the grand court-yard of the palace. He afterwards painted there, as Carpi had done elsewhere, the Princes of Este, or more correctly, placed in the niches a bronze statue of each of them; in constructing which work he fell from the scaffolding, and died in 1577. He was assisted in the same labour by his brother Girolamo, by Ippolito Casoli, and Girolamo Grassaleoni, all of whom continued to serve their native place in quality of ornamental painters. Whilst Benvenuto and Girolamo were thus bent on displaying all the attractions of the art, there was rising into notice, from the school of Michelangiolo at Rome, one who aspired only to the bold and terrible; a character not much known to the artists of Ferrara up to that period. His name was Bastiano Filippi, familiarly called Bastianino, and surnamed _Gratella_,[59] from his custom of covering large pictures with crossed lines, in order to reduce them with exactness to a small scale; which he acquired from Michelangiolo, and was the first to introduce into Ferrara. He was son to Camillo, an artist of uncertain school, but who, in the opinion of Bononi, "painted with neatness and clearness, as in his Annunziata at S. Maria in Vado;" in the ground of which is a half-figure of St. Paul, which leads to the conjecture, that Camillo aspired to the style of Michelangiolo. It would seem, therefore, that Bastiano imbibed from his father his ardent attachment to that style, on account of which he secretly withdrew from his father's house, and went to Rome, where he became one of the most indefatigable copyists and a favourite disciple of Bonarruoti. How greatly he improved may be seen in his picture of the Last Judgment at Ferrara, completed in three years, in the choir of the Metropolitana; a work so nearly approaching Michelangiolo that the whole Florentine School can boast nothing of the kind. It displays grand design, great variety of figures, fine grouping, and very pleasing repose. It seems incredible that, in a theme already treated by Michelangiolo, Filippi should have succeeded in producing such novel and grand effect. Like all true imitators, he