models; for Oderigi, who having been already some time before deceased, was found by Dante in purgatory, according to Baldinucci's computation, in the year 1300? I therefore refer this miniaturist to the Bolognese School, most probably as a disciple, assuredly as a master; and, on the authority of Vellutello, as the master of Franco, both a miniaturist and a painter. Franco is the first among the Bolognese who instructed many pupils; and he is almost deserving the name of the Giotto of this school. Nevertheless he approached only at considerable distance, the Giotto of Florence, as far as we can judge from the few relics which are now pointed out as his in the Malvezzi museum. The most undoubted specimen is one of the Virgin, seated on a throne, bearing the date of 1313; a production that may compare with the works of Cimabue, or of Guido da Siena. There are also two diminutive paintings, displaying much grace, and similar miniatures, ascribed to the same hand. The most eminent pupils educated by Franco in his school, according to Malvasia, are by name, Vitale, Lorenzo, Simone, Jacopo, Cristoforo; specimens of whose paintings in fresco are still seen at the Madonna di Mezzaratta. This church, in respect to the Bolognese, exhibits the same splendor as the Campo Santo of Pisa, in relation to the Florentine School; a studio in which the most distinguished trecentisti who flourished in the adjacent parts, competed for celebrity. They cannot, indeed, boast all the simplicity, the elegance, the happy distribution, which form the excellence of the Giottesque; but they display a fancy, fire, and method of colouring, which led Bonarruoti and the Caracci, considering the times in which they lived, not to undervalue them; insomuch that, on their shewing signs of decay, these artists took measures for their preservation. In the forementioned church, then, besides the pupils of Franco already named, Galasso of Ferrara, and an unknown imitator of the style of Giotto, asserted by Lamo in his MS. to have been Giotto himself, painted, at different times, histories from the Old and New Testament. I am inclined rather to pronounce the unknown artist to be Giotto's imitator; both because Vasari, in Mezzaratta, makes no mention of Giotto, and because, if the latter had painted, he would have ranked with the most eminent, and would have been selected to pursue his labours, not in that corner ornamented with paintings in the Florentine style, but in some more imposing situation.