of having been poisoned, no very rare occurrence with defamers like him. Baldinucci, supported by most of the dilettanti, extols him as another Guido; and assuredly he approaches nearer to him than to any other, and with a decision which belonged to few imitators. His ideas are not so noble, but in the opinion of many they were even more graceful. He is less learned, but more accurate; and may be pronounced the only artist who in the hands and feet very assiduously studied the manner of Lodovico. He was extremely diligent in modelling for his own use, and one of his heads in particular is commended, from which he drew those of his old men, which are extremely beautiful. From the models, too, he derived his folds, though he never attained to the same majestic and broad sweep as Guido and Tiarini, a truth which he as candidly admitted. In point of colouring he is varied and natural. His greatest study was bestowed upon his fleshes, in which, though friendly to the use of white lead, he was content with moderate white, avoiding what he called the cosmetics of Domenichino and the shades of the Caracci. In his outlines and shadows, dismissing the use of the lacca and terra d'ombra,[36] he introduced ultramarine and terra verde, so much commended by Guido. He animated his fleshes with certain lights from place to place, never contrasting them with vivid colours, except in as far as he frequently studied to give them from depth of shadow, that relief which serves to redouble their beauty. If there was nothing decidedly bold in his painting, yet he covered the whole with an ashy tone, such as Guido applied in his St. Thomas, and which became so perfectly familiar to Cantarini as to acquire for him from Albani the surname of _pittor cenerino_. Spite of this opinion, however, he is considered by Malvasia as _the most graceful colourist_, and he adds, the _most correct designer_ of his age. His most beautiful pictures that I have seen, in which his heads of saints are always conspicuous for beauty and expression, are the St. Antony, at the Franciscans di Cagli; the St. James, in the church of that name in Rimini; the Magdalen, at the Filippini of Pesaro; and, in the same city, his St. Dominick, at the Predicatori; in whose convent are also two Evangelists, half-size figures, animated to the life. There is also a S. Romualdo, in possession of the noble Paolucci, a figure that seems to start from the canvass, and at the Casa Mosca, besides various other works, is a portrait of a young nun that rivets every beholder. Many of his Holy Families also are to be seen in Bologna, in Pesaro, and at Rome; nor are his heads of St. John very rare, any more than his half-figures, or heads of apostles, a specimen of which is to be seen in the Pitti palace. Footnote 36: Lacca, a dark red; terra d'ombra, umber.