The long protracted life of this artist comprehended the whole of the period now under our view, and even extended beyond it. Born in the time of Francia, educated by Imola, who at his death selected him to finish one of his pictures, and subsequently employed for a long period as the assistant of Vaga, and of Vasari, he continued to labour and to teach without intermission, until the Caracci, once his disciples, drew all his commissions and followers to themselves. For this result he was indebted to his own conduct. Devoted to pleasure (the most fatal enemy to an artist's reputation) he could only provide the means of gratification by burthening himself with works, and executing them with little care. He possessed a fertility of ideas, a vehemence, and a cultivation of mind, well adapted for works of magnitude. Abandoning, therefore, the careful finish of Francucci, he adopted the method of Vasari, and like him covered with his works a vast number of walls in a short space of time, and nearly in the same taste. In design he is more negligent than Vasari, in his motions more energetic; his colours have the same yellow cast, but rather more delicacy. In Città di Castello a hall of the noble family of Vitelli is filled with family histories, painted by him in a few weeks, as Malvasia informs us, and the work confirms the assertion. Similar specimens, or but little superior, are met with in Rome, at the Villa Giulia, and at the Palazzo di Toscana, in the Campo Marzio, and in various houses in Bologna. Yet in other places he appears an artist of merit for a declining age; as in his Epiphany, at the Grazie, where he displays a facility, a pomp of drapery, and a magnificence nearly approaching the style of Paul Veronese. This work bears the name of the painter written in letters of gold. But his best claim to distinction is founded on his portraits, which are more highly prized in cabinets than are his compositions in the churches. It was this talent which induced Michelangiolo to present him to Julius III. by whom he was pensioned as one of the Palatine painters of his time.