adjusted the difference by referring him to their own Felsina. For me his country may remain matter of doubt, though not so the school in which he flourished; inasmuch as he certainly resided, and painted a great deal, both on altar-pieces and on walls, at Bologna. At that period, he must have attracted the largest share of applause; since to him was committed the figure of the altar, which is still in existence, with his name. The Signori Malvezzi, likewise, are in possession of one of his altar-pieces, abounding with figures of saints, and divided into ten compartments. The design of these figures is rude, the colouring languid; but the whole displays a taste assuredly not derived from the Florentines, and this is the principal difficulty in the question.

Simone, most commonly called in Bologna Da Crocifissi, was eminent in these sacred subjects. At S. Stefano, and other churches, he has exhibited several fine specimens, by no means incorrect in the naked figure, with a most devotional cast of features, extended arms, and a drapery of various colours. They resemble Giotto's in point of colouring, and in the posture of the feet, one of which is placed over the other, but in other respects they approach nearer the more ancient. I have seen also some Madonnas painted by him; sometimes in a sitting posture, at others in half-size, with drapery and with hands in the manner of the Greek paintings. In features, however, and in the attitudes, they are both carefully studied and commendable for those times; a specimen of which is still to be seen at S. Michele in Bosco.

Among the Bolognese trecentisti Jacopo Avanzi is the most distinguished. He produced the chief part of the histories at the church of Mezzaratta, many in conjunction with Simone, and a few of them alone; as the miracle of the Probation, at the bottom of which he wrote Jacobus pinxit. He appears to have employed himself with most success in the chapel of S. Jacopo al Santo, at Padua, where, in some very spirited figures, representing some exploit of arms, he may be said to have conformed his style pretty nearly to the Giottesque; and even in some measure to have surpassed Giotto, who was not skilful in heroic subjects. His masterpiece seems to have been the triumphs painted in a saloon at Verona, a work commended by Mantegna himself as an excellent production. He subscribed his name sometimes Jacobus Pauli; which has led me to doubt whether he was not originally from Venice, and the same artist who, together with Paolo his father, and his brother Giovanni, painted the ancient altar-piece of San Marco at that place. The time exactly favours such a supposition; the resemblance between the countenances in the paintings at S. Marco and at the Mezzaratta, farther confirms it; nor can I easily persuade myself that Avanzi would have entitled himself Jacobus Pauli, had there flourished another artist at the same period, likely, from similarity of signatures, to create a mistake. In the Notizia of Morelli, p. 5, he is called Jacomo Davanzo, a Paduan, or Veronese, or as some maintain a Bolognese, words which may create a doubt of the real place of his birth. Without entering on such a question, I shall only observe, that I incline to believe that his most fixed domicile, at least towards the close of his days, was at Bologna; and it has already been remarked, that some artists were accustomed to assume their place of residence for a surname. It would seem that two painters of this age derive their parentage from him: one who on an altar-piece at S. Michele in Bosco signs himself Petrus Jacobi, and the same Orazio di Jacopo mentioned by Malvasia. At all events it is observable in each school, that, where an artist was the son of a painter, he gladly adopted his father's name as a sort of support and recommendation of his own. One Giovanni of Bologna, unknown in his own country, has left at Venice a painting of S. Cristoforo, in the school of the Merchants at S. Maria dell'Orto, to which he adds his name, though without date; and, from his ancient manner, we are authorized to believe that he really belongs to the place which is here assigned him.

Lippo di Dalmasio, formerly believed to be a Carmelite friar, until the Turin edition of Baldinucci proved that he had died married, sprung from the school of Vitale, and was named Lippo dalle Madonne. It is not true, as reported, that he instructed the Beata Caterina Vigri in the art, by whom there remain some miniatures, and an infant Christ painted on panel. Lippo's manner scarcely varies from the ancient, except perhaps in better harmony of tints and flow of drapery; to which last, however, he adds fringes of gold lace tolerably wide, a practice very generally prevalent in the early part of the fifteenth century. His heads are beautiful and novel, more particularly in several Madonnas, which Guido Reni never ceased to admire, being in the habit of declaring that Lippo must have been indebted to some supernatural power for his exhibition in one countenance of all the majesty, the sanctity, and the sweetness of the holy mother, and that in this view he had not been equalled by any modern. Such is the account given by Malvasia, who relates it, he adds, as he heard it. He moreover assures us, on the authority of Guido, that Lippo painted several histories of Elias in fresco, with great spirit; while, on the experience of Tiarini, he would persuade us that he painted in oil at S. Procolo in via S. Stefano, and in private houses; on which point he impugns the commonly received opinion respecting Antonello, examined by us more than once. Contemporary with Lippo must have flourished Maso da Bologna, painter of the ancient cupola of the cathedral.

Subsequent to 1409, the latest epoch of the paintings of Lippo, the Bolognese School began to decline; nor could it well be otherwise. Dalmatio, an instructor of youth, was not by profession a painter of history; and, as portrait painters never particularly promoted the progress of any school, so on his part he conferred little benefit on his own. This decline has been attributed to some specimens of art brought from Constantinople, overcharged with dark lines in the contours and folds, and in the remaining parts resembling rather the dryness and inelegance of the Greek mosaic-workers, than the softness and grace then sought to be introduced by the most eminent Italians in the art. Copies of these were eagerly inquired for in Bologna, and in all adjacent cities, which produced that abundance of them, still to be seen in the sale shops and private houses throughout those districts, besides several in the city and state of Venice.[5] But, in these instances, they were only copied; in Bologna they were imitated likewise by several pupils of Lippo, who, either in part or altogether, adopted that style in their own compositions. One Lianori, usually inscribing his name Petrus Joannis, and known by some works interspersed in different churches and collections, is most accused of this extravagance; an Orazio di Jacopo, (perhaps dell'Avanzi) of whom there remains a portrait of S. Bernardino, at the church of the Osservanza; a Severo da Bologna, to whom is ascribed a rude altar-piece, in the Malvezzi Museum; with several others, either little known or unmentioned, whose names I am not surprised should be omitted by Vasari, who, in the same way,