No one of the foreign painters is known to have opened school in Liguria, except a native of Nizza, who, through his succession, is almost regarded as the progenitor of the ancient Genoese School. He is called Lodovico Brea, and his works are by no means rare at Genoa and throughout the state, with notices of him between the years 1485 and 1513. In point of taste he is not equal to the best among his contemporaries in other schools, employing gilding, and more strongly adhering to the old dryness of design. His style, nevertheless, yields to that of few in the beauty of its heads, and in the vividness of its colouring, which still remains almost unimpaired. His folding is also good, his composition tolerable, he selects difficult perspectives, and his attitudes are bold. From his whole painting he might be rather pronounced the head of a new, than the follower of any other school. He never attempted grand proportions; in smaller, as we see in the Slaughter of the Innocents, at S. Agostino, he is excellent. His S. Giovanni, in the chapel of the Madonna di Savona, executed by commission for the Card. della Rovere, in competition with other artists, is highly praised. Thus, until the year 1513, painting in Genoa was in the hands of strangers, and if the natives at all practised it they were few only, as we shall shortly show, while both one and the other were far behind the best methods of their age. Ottaviano Fregoso, elected doge in the above year, at length shed new lustre on the arts. He invited to Genoa Gio. Giacomo Lombardo, a sculptor, and Carlo del Mantegna, a painter, who succeeded, as we have stated, both to the works and reputation of his master. Carlo not only painted in Genoa but taught, and with a success that would seem quite incredible, were it not that the works of his imitators are still in existence. Thus the Genoese School first took its rise from Brea, and was promoted by Carlo, as we find it described by two painters in two volumes; a school of a long, uninterrupted, and illustrious succession. The first volume is by Raffael Soprani, a patrician of the city, who wrote lives of the Genoese professors of design up to 1667; and added also notices of foreign ones who had been employed in that splendid capital. The second is by the Cav. Carlo Ratti, secretary to the Ligustic academy, who, after having republished the Lives of Soprani, accompanied by useful notes, continued the same work in another volume and on the same plan, down to the present day. He has moreover published, in two small volumes, a Guide, intended to give an account of the best specimens of art, both in private and public, which Genoa and every district of the state can boast; an extremely useful undertaking, and, if I mistake not, without example either in or beyond Italy. Thus, owing to the exertions of this deserving citizen, the pictoric history of Liguria has become one of the most complete among