in which he only moderately excelled, than for his assiduity and his fortune. He was one of those wits, who in the want of sound merit know how to substitute easier methods to advance themselves; seasonably to regale such as can assist them, to affect joy amidst utter humiliation, to accommodate themselves to men's tempers, to flatter, to insinuate, and to canvass interest, until they attain their object. By means like these he maintained his equipage in Rome, where Annibal, during many years, obtained no other stipend for his honourable toils, than a bare roof for his head, daily pittance for himself and his servant, with annual payment of a hundred and twenty crowns.[28] In the few pieces executed by Valesio at Bologna, such as his Nunziata of the Mendicants, we perceive a dry composition of small relief, yet exact according to the method of the miniaturists. He appears to have somewhat improved at Rome, where he left a few works in fresco and in oil, exhibiting his whole power, perhaps, in a figure of Religion, in the cloister of the Minerva. To these artists of the Caracci school it will be sufficient only to have alluded. They were indeed no more than gregarious followers of those elevated standards of their age. Footnote 28: See _Malvasia_, vol. i. p. 574. The five, however, who next follow, deserve a nearer view, and more accurate acquaintance with their merits. These, remaining indeed at Rome, became leaders of new ranks, which from them assumed their name and device; and hence we have alternately been compelled to record the disciples of Albano, of Guido, and so of the rest. This repetition, however, in other places, will now permit us to treat of them in a more cursory view.