Subsequent to the period of Jacopone, who never acquired fortune, Marco Marchetti greatly distinguished himself. So at least he is named by Baglione, or Marco da Faenza, according to Vasari, who observes that he was "particularly experienced in regard to frescos; bold, decided, terrible; and especially in the practice and manner of drawing grotesques, not having any rival then equal to him." Nor perhaps has any artist since appeared who equals him in this respect, and in happily adapting to grotesques little histories, full of spirit and elegance, and with figures which form a school for design. Such is the Slaughter of the Innocents, in the Vatican. He succeeded Sabbatini in the works of Gregory XIII. and entered the service of Cosmo I. for whom he decorated the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence. He painted little in his own country, though a few pieces in oil are still pointed out, and an arch in a public way, with festoons of flowers, monsters, and capricci, resembling the work of an ancient artist. The whole reminds us of mythology and erudition, while at subsequent periods it became customary in this kind of painting to dare every extravagance and excess. Perhaps his most finished piece adorns the Communal collection, representing the Feast of Christ in the house of the Pharisee. His death occurred in 1588. Contemporary with him flourished Gio. Batista Armenini, also of Faenza, an able artist, and author of the "True Precepts of Painting,"[20] published at Ravenna in 1587, a work that re-appeared in the ensuing century at Venice. In fact Armenini was a better theorist than a practitioner; nor has he any production in his native place, except a large picture of the Assumption, on which he inscribed _Jo. Bapt. Armenini primiliæ_, meaning, that it was among the first, or perhaps the very first altar-piece which he ever painted. Perotti, the author of certain _Farragini_,[21] which are still preserved in the library of the Seminary at Faenza, there observes, that Armenini was a pupil of Perin del Vaga. Nor is there a great interval between him and Cristoforo Lanconello, an artist of Faenza, first discovered to us in the letter of Crespi, just before cited. He is celebrated for his picture in the Casa Ercolani, in which the Virgin appears crowned with a glory, attended by Saints Francis and Chiara, and two more; a work displaying great freedom of hand, beauty of colouring, fine airs of the heads, and altogether in the composition of Barocci. Footnote 20: _Veri Precetti della Pittura._ Footnote 21: A mixture of all styles and subjects