observed that those who were mannerists in their style, like Zuccaro and Cesari, always when working on a small scale, improved upon themselves. Bartolommeo Cesi fills the rank also of head of a school, among those who cleared the path to the good method pursued by the disciples of the Caracci. From him Tiarini acquired the art of painting fresco, and his works gave the first impulse to Guido in attaining to his sweet and graceful manner. On examining a work by Cesi, it sometimes seems doubtful whether it may not have been that of Guido when young. He dares little, copies every thing from nature, selects fine forms of each period of life, and makes sparing use of the ideal; his lines and folds are few, his attitudes measured, and his tints more beautiful than strong. He has some paintings at San Jacopo, and at San Martino, which are extremely pleasing; and it is said that Guido, during his early youth, was in the habit of sitting to contemplate them sometimes for hours. His frescos, perhaps, display more power, where he has introduced many copious histories with great judgment, variety, and mastery; and such are those of Æneas, in the Favi palace. His Arch of Forli, painted for Clement VIII., with different exploits, surprises us even more. Though exposed to the action of the open air, during so many years, this piece retains the vividness of its tints to a surprising degree. Malvasia's opinion, in commendation of this artist, is very remarkable, that he had a manner which at once satisfies, pleases, and enamours the beholder, as truly exquisite and sweet as any style of the best Tuscan masters in fresco. In the larger chapel of the Bolognese monastery of Carthusians, there are distinguished examples in both kinds of painting; and the describer of the Carthusian monastery, in his account of them, likewise enumerates Cesi's works for other monasteries of the same order, those of Ferrara, of Florence, and Siena. He was held in esteem by the Caracci, and very generally so by the different professors, no less for the candour of his character, than for his love of the art. To his efforts it was chiefly owing that the company of painters, in 1595, obtained a separation from the artificers of swords, of saddles, and of scabbards, with all of whom they had for centuries been united in the same corporation, and that a new one being formed of painters and of cotton manufacturers,[14] it not being possible wholly to exclude the latter, they were to rank inferior to the artists, or, to use the words of Malvasia, "that they should condescend to furnish to the amount of two hundred, or more, crowns, rich purple cloaks to decorate the wearer of the laurel crown, preceding their vice steward."[15] Footnote 14: In the original the term used for these cotton merchants is _bambagiai_. Footnote 15: In the Italian called _promassaro_.