having seen Giotto's specimens in miniature, "should in a short time become famous." Giotto, in 1298, when twenty-two years of age, was at Rome in the service of the pope; where, observes Baldinucci, he also illuminated a book for the Car. Stefaneschi; a circumstance not mentioned by Vasari, nor supported by any historical document. Yet taking all this for granted, what length of time is afforded for Oderigi to display his powers, on the strength of seeing Giotto's 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.

I ought not to omit to mention in this place, that Giotto employed himself at Bologna. There is one of his altar-pieces still preserved at San Antonio with the superscription of Magister Ioctus de Florentia. We, moreover, learn from Vasari that Puccio Capanna, a Florentine, and Ottaviano da Faenza, with one Pace da Faenza, all pupils of Giotto, pursued their labours more or less at Bologna. Of these, if I mistake not, there are occasional specimens still to be met with in collections and in churches. Nor are there wanting works of the successors of Taddeo Gaddi, one of the school of Giotto, which, as I have seen great numbers in Florence, I have been able to distinguish with little difficulty among specimens of this other school. Besides this style, another was introduced into Bologna from Florence, that of Orcagna, whose Novissimi of S. Maria Novella were almost copied in a chapel of San Petronio, painted after the year 1400; the same edifice which Vasari on the strength of popular tradition, has asserted, was ornamented by Buffalmacco. From this information, we are brought to conclude that the Florentines exercised an influence over the art, even in Bologna; nor can I commend Malvasia, who, in recounting the progress of his school, gives them no place, nor makes them any acknowledgment. Their models, which at that period were the most excellent in the art, there is reason to suppose, may in those times have afforded assistance to the young Bolognese artists, as those of the school of Caracci, in another age, instructed the youth of Florence. It is time, however, to return to the pictures of Mezzaratta.

The authors of those just recorded, were, some of them, contemporary with the disciples of Giotto; others flourished subsequent to them; nor is there any name more ancient than that of Vital da Bologna, called dalle Madonne, of whom there are accounts from 1320 till the year 1345. This artist, who painted for that church a picture of the Nativity, and from whose hand one of S. Benedetto with other saints is seen in the Malvezzi palace, had more dryness of design than belonged to the disciples of Giotto at that period; and he employed compositions that differed from that school, so extremely tenacious of Giotto's ideas. If Baldinucci ventured to assert of him that his style, in every particular, agrees with that of his Florentine contemporaries, he wrote on the faith of others; a sufficient reason with him for affirming that he was pupil to Giotto, or to some one of his disciples. I would not venture so far; but rather, to judge from the hand of Vitale, which Baldi, in his Biblioteca Bolognese, entitles "manum elimatissimam," from the dryness of design, and from his almost exclusive custom of painting Madonnas, I argue that he had not departed much from the example set by Franco, more of a miniaturist than a painter, and that his school could not have been that school more elevated, varied, and rich in ideas, formed by Giotto.

Lorenzo, an artist, as is elsewhere observed, of Venice more probably than of Bologna,[4] who produced the history of Daniel, on which he inscribed his name, painted during the same period, and attempted copious compositions. He was greatly inferior to the Memmi, to the Laurati, to the Gaddi, though he is represented as their equal in reputation by Malvasia. He betrays the infancy of the art, no less in point of design than in the expressions of his countenances, whose grief sometimes provokes a smile; and in his forced and extravagant attitudes in the manner of the Greeks. Hence it is here out of the question to mention Giotto, in whose school, cautiously avoiding every kind of extravagance, there predominates a certain gravity and repose, occasionally amounting to coldness; described by the author of the Bolognese Guide as the statuary manner; and it is one of those marks by which to distinguish that school from others of the same age.

At a later period flourished Galasso, who is to be sought for in the list of artists of Ferrara, along with the three supposed disciples of Vitale; namely, Cristoforo, Simone, and Jacopo; all of whom, in mature age, were engaged in pictures to decorate the church at Mezzaratta, which were completed in 1404. Vasari writes that he is uncertain whether Cristoforo belonged to Ferrara, or da Modena; and whilst the two cities were disputing the honour, the Bolognese historians, Baldi, Masini, and Bumaldo,