Domenico Parodi was, like his father, a sculptor, and moreover an architect; but he owed his reputation to painting. Less equal to himself than Piola, he enjoyed a greater fame; as he had a more enlarged genius, a more extended knowledge of letters and the arts, a more decided imitation of the Greek design, and a pencil more pliable to every style. He first studied in Venice under Bombelli, and there remain, in a casa Durazzo, some excellent copies of Venetian pictures made at that period; nor did he forsake this style during the many succeeding years that he studied in Rome. He painted, in a good Marattesque style, the noble picture of S. Francesco di Sales at the Filippini, and several other pictures; but of him, as well as of the Caracci, we find works partaking in an extraordinary manner of the style of Tintoretto or Paolo, and which are described in his life. His most celebrated work is the Sala of the palace Negroni. Some professors have expressed their opinion, that there is not so fine a performance in all Genoa; and it is a fact, that Mengs's attention was there arrested for several hours by a painter that he had never before heard of. A correct design, a vigour and harmony of colour, a mode of decorating the walls peculiarly his own, attempted by many, but not understood by any, render this a most remarkable production; nor is it a little aided by the poetical invention and the beautiful distribution and grouping of the figures. The whole is devoted to the glory of this noble family, whose escutcheon is crowned by Prudence, Continence, and other virtues, expressed by their several symbols; and there are also fables of Hercules slaying the Lion, and Achilles instructed by Chiron, which indicate the honours acquired by this family in letters and in arms. Portraits are added to these decorations, and every part is so well connected, and so well varied, and so enriched by vestures, drapery, and other ornaments, that, though many noble families may boast of being more highly celebrated by the muse, few have obtained such distinguished honours from the sister art. Other noble houses were also ornamented by him in fresco; and the gallery of the Sig. Marcello Durazzo, decorated with stories, and fables, and chiariscuri, which might be taken for bassi-relievi, is a work much resembling the one just described. In some pictures, as in the S. Camillo de' Lellis, he does not seem the same; and probably some of his scholars had the greater share in them. His most celebrated scholar was the priest Angiolo Rossi, one of the best imitators, in humorous subjects, of Piovan Arlotto; and in painting a good follower of Maratta, though he left but few works. Batista Parodi was the brother of Domenico, but not the scholar; he partook of the Venetian School; expeditious, free, fertile in invention, and brilliant in colouring, but not sufficiently select, nor equal to the better artists. He lived for some time in Milan and Bergamo.