Sirani’s sisters, Anna Maria and Barbara, are also mentioned among her scholars, with Lucrezia Scarafaglia, Maria Teresa Coriolani, and Veronica Fontana, who carved excellently well in wood, and executed portraits in this manner which were highly praised. Many other names of women are recorded who derived their impressions of art, directly or indirectly, from Sirani. Teresa Muratori was the daughter of an eminent physician, and born at Bologna in 1662. At an early age she showed a genius for painting and music. She was instructed in designing by Emilio Taruffi, and afterward took lessons from Lorenzo Parmello and Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole. She painted historical pieces, and several religious ones for churches in Bologna. She died at the age of forty-six. Orlandi speaks highly of Maria Helena Panzacchi. She was born at Bologna in 1668, was taught designing by Taruffi, and became a reputable painter of landscapes, which she embellished with figures. Her works were correct in design, and the disposition was marked by elegance and taste. Several of them are in private collections at Bologna. Bologna boasted also of Ersilia Creti, a pupil of her father Donato, and of Maria Viani, of whose workmanship a reclining Venus, in the Dresden gallery, exquisitely done, remains to her praise. Among others of the school of Bologna, we may mention Maria Dolce, the daughter and pupil of Carlo Dolce, so noted and so admired for the calm dignity of his productions. She copied several of her father’s pictures. The name of another painter, Agnes Dolce, may be added; but we must pass over a host, observing only that the Bolognese was throughout the seventeenth century the richest in female talent of all the schools of Italy. CHAPTER VI. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. School of the Academicians after Caravaggio.--Unidealized Nature.--Rude and violent Passions delineated.--Dark and stormy Side of Humanity.--Dark Coloring and Shadows.--The gloomy and passionate expressed in Pictures appeared in the Lives of Artists.--The Dagger and Poison-cup common.--Aniella di Rosa.--The Pupil of Stanzioni.--Character of her Painting.--Romantic Love and Marriage.--The happy Home destroyed.--The hearth-stone Serpent.--Jealousy.--The pretended Proof.--Phrensy and Murder.--Other fair Neapolitans.--The Paintress of Messina.--The Schools of Bologna and Naples embrace the most prominent Italian Paintings.--Commencement of Crayon-drawing.--Tuscan Ladies of Rank cultivating Art.--The Rosalba of the Florentine School.--Art in the City of the Cæsars.--The Roman Flower-painter.--Engravers.--Medallion-cutters.--A female Architect.--A Roman Sculptress.--Women Artists of the Venetian School.--At Pavia.--The Painter’s four Daughters.--Chiara Varotari.--Shares her Brother’s Labors.--A skillful Nurse.--Her Pupils.--Other female Artists of this time.--The Schools of Northern Italy.--Their Paintresses.--Giovanna Fratellini.