The new Guide of Bologna, published in the year 1782, directs our attention to a number of figures, in particular those of the Virgin, which, on the strength of ancient documents, are to be assigned to ages anterior to the twelfth century. Of some of these we find the authors' names indicated; and it forms, perhaps, the peculiar boast of Bologna to claim three of them during the twelfth century: one Guido, one Ventura, and one Ursone, of whom there exist memorials as late back as 1248. Most part, however, are from unknown hands, and so well executed, that we are justified in suspecting that they must have been retouched about the times of Lippo Dalmasio, to whose style a few of them bear considerable resemblance. Yet not so with others; more especially a specimen in San Pietro, which I consider to be one of the most ancient preserved in Italy. But the finest monument of painting possessed by Bologna, at once the most unique and untouched, is the _Catino_ of San Stefano, on which is figured the Adoration of the Lamb of God, described in the Apocalypse; and below this are several scriptural histories; as the Birth of our Lord, his Epiphany, the Dispute, and similar subjects. The author was either Greek, or rather a scholar of those Greeks who ornamented the church of St. Mark in Venice with their mosaics; the manner much resembling theirs in its rude design, the spareness of the limbs, and in the distribution of the colours. It is besides, certain, that these Greeks educated several artists for Italy, and among others the founder of the Ferrarese School, of whom more in its appropriate place. However this may be, the painter exhibits traces that differ from those mosaic workers, such as the flow of the beard, the shape of the garments, and a taste less bent on thronging his compositions. And in respect to his age, it is apparent it must have been between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, from the form of the characters, collated with other writings belonging to the same period.