But the most distinguished artist in those parts, and in Turin itself, was Macrino, a native of Alladio, and a citizen of Alba; whence, in a picture which is in the sacristy of the metropolitan church in Turin, he subscribes himself _Macrinus de Alba_. His name was Gian Giacomo Fava, an excellent painter, of great truth in his countenances, careful and finished in every part, and sufficiently skilled in his colouring and shadowing. I am aware that the Sig. Piacenza has mentioned him in his notes to Baldinucci, a work which, to the loss of the history of art and just criticism, remains imperfect, and which I have not now at hand. I know not where Macrino studied; but in his picture at Turin, which is much in the style of Bramante and his Milanese contemporaries, he has placed as an ornament in his landscape the Flavian amphitheatre; whence we may conclude that he had seen Rome; or, if not Rome, at least the learned school of Da Vinci. I found by him in the Certosa of Pavia another picture, with S. Ugo and S. Siro; an inferior performance with respect to the forms and the colouring, but very carefully painted in all its parts. But, wherever he studied, he is the first artist in these countries who made advances to the modern style; and he seems to have been held in esteem, not only in Asti and in Alba, which contain many of his large works and cabinet pictures, but in Turin, and in the palace of the prince; to whose family, as I conjecture, belonged a cardinal, represented at the feet of the Virgin, and of the saints surrounding her, in the picture at the cathedral. I am persuaded that he left other pictures in Turin; but that city, above all the other capitals of Italy, has perhaps been the most addicted to substitute modern pictures for the ancient. Contemporary with Macrino was Brea of Nizza, whom I mentioned in the school of Genoa, together with three painters of Alessandria della Paglia, all having lived in that state. I shall here only add Borghese of Nizza della Paglia, where, and in Bassignana, are pictures inscribed _Hieronymus Burgensis Niciæ Palearum pinxit_.