To Guido Reni belongs Ercole de Maria, or da S. Giovanni, called Ercolino di Guido. So pliant was his genius to that of his master, that when the latter had half completed a picture, his pupil made a copy and substituted it for the original, and Guido continued the work, unsuspicious of the cheat, as if it had been his own. He willingly employed him, therefore, in multiplying his own designs, two of which copies are yet seen in public, extremely beautiful, though not displaying the same freedom as others which he conducted on private commission, at a more advanced age. In these there appears a decision and flow of pencil which imposed upon the best judges, a talent that procured him admiration at Rome, with an honour received by no other copyist, being created a Cavalier by Urban VIII.; but this artist also died in the flower of his age. Another good copyist and master of Guido's style appeared in Gio. Andrea Sirani. On his master's death he completed the great picture of St. Bruno, left unfinished at the Certosini, with others throughout the city in the same state. Whether owing to Guido's retouches, or want of freedom, Sirani's earliest works bear much resemblance to that master's second manner, more particularly his Crucifixion in the church of S. Marino, which seems like a repetition of the S. Lorenzo in Lucina, or that in the Modenese gallery, in whose features death itself appears beautiful. In progress of time Sirani is supposed to have aimed at the stronger style of Guido in his early career, and conducted in such taste are his pictures of the Supper of the Pharisee, at the Certosa, the Nuptials of the Virgin, at St. Giorgio, in Bologna, and the Twelve Crucifixions, in the cathedral of Piacenza, an extremely beautiful painting, ascribed by some to Elisabetta Sirani, a daughter and pupil of Gio. Andrea.