[87] In the Risposta alle Riflessioni Critiche di Mons. Argens.
[88] This artist had painted one of the two laterals of the chapel, asserting that there was no artist living capable of painting a companion to it. Benefial painted one very superior, and represented in it an executioner with his eyes fixed on and deriding the picture of Muratori.
[89] See Memorie per le Belle Arti, tom. ii. p. 135, where Sig. Giangherardo de' Rossi gives an account of this artist, derived principally from information furnished by Sig. Cav. Puccini, who has been occasionally mentioned with approbation in the first volume of this work.
[90] Francesco Appiani, of Ancona, a scholar of Magatta, and not long since deceased, did not find a place in my former edition, but is fully entitled to one in this. He studied a considerable time in Rome, whilst Benefial, Trevisani, Conca, and Mancini, flourished there; and through the friendship of these masters (particularly of the latter), was enabled to form an agreeable style, of which he there left a specimen at S. Sisto Vecchio. It is the death of S. Domenico, painted in fresco, by order of Benedict XIII. who remunerated him with a gold medal. He went afterwards to Perugia, where he was presented with the freedom of the city, and continued his labours there with unabated ardour, until ninety years of age, an instance of vigour unexampled, except in the case of Titian. Perugia abounds with his paintings of all kinds, and his best works are to be found in the churches of S. Pietro de' Cassinensi, S. Thomas, and Monte Corona. He also decorated the church of S. Francis, and the vault of the cathedral, where he rivalled the freedom of style and composition of Carloni. Both he himself, and one of his pictures, placed in a church of Masaccio, are eulogised in the Antich. Picene (tom. xx. p. 159). He painted many pictures also for England.
[91] For a more particular catalogue of these works, see the Memorie delle belle arti, 1788, in which year they were republished in Rome, with the remarks of the Sig. Avvocato Fea, in one vol. 4to. and 2 vols. 8vo. The most celebrated treatise of Mengs is the Riflessioni sopra i tre gran pittori, Raffaello, Tiziano, e Coreggio, e sopra gli antichi. On the life and style of Coreggio he wrote a separate paper, which was afterwards the subject of a controversy; for as, at the close of the year 1781, appeared the Notizie storiche del Coreggio of Ratti, accompanied by a letter from Mengs, dated Madrid, 1774, in which he entreats Ratti to collect and publish them, Ratti was by several writers accused of plagiarism, and of having endeavoured, by a change of style and the addition of some trifling matter, to appropriate to himself what in reality belonged to Mengs. Not long afterwards there appeared an anonymous Defence of Ratti, without date or place, for which I refer to the next note.
[92] In the Difesa del Ratti, accused de repetundis, this very obvious contradiction is adduced as a proof that the Memorie were really composed by that author. It is there asserted that he wrote them in a clear and simple style, and then communicated them to Mengs, on whose death they were found among his writings, and published as his. Some other things are indeed said, that do not favour the cause of Ratti; as that when he was in Parma he consulted Mengs on what he should say of the works of Coreggio in that city, and as he could not see those in Dresden, he had from him a minute account of them; and also that Mengs was accustomed to add remarks to the MS. on which his friends consulted him. If, therefore, it be conceded that Mengs had such a share in this MS. (which would appear to have been drawn up by the scholar under the direction of the master, as to opinions on art, and as to a catalogue of the best pictures, accompanied too with remarks,) who does not perceive that the best part of that work, and the great attraction of its matter and style, is due to Mengs?
[93] This picture is one of the most finished compositions since the restoration of art. Each muse is there represented with her peculiar attribute, as derived from antiquity; and the artist is deservedly eulogized by the Sig. Ab. Visconti, in the celebrated Museo Pio Clementino, tom. i. p. 57.
[94] This eminent man was not without his enemies and calumniators, excited by his criticisms on the great masters, and still more by his animadversions on artists of inferior fame, and some recently deceased. Cumberland wrote against him with manifest prejudice; and the anonymous author of the Difesa del Cav. Ratti, the work of Ratti himself, or for which at least he furnished the materials, speaks of him in a contemptuous manner. He particularly questions his literary character and his discernment, and ascribes to his confidential friend, Winckelmann, the merit of his remarks. In point of art he estimates Mengs as an excellent, but by no means an unrivalled painter. Descending to particulars, he publishes not a few criticisms, which he received either in MS. or from the mouths of different professors, and adds others of his own. Of these the experienced must form their own judgment. With regard to his colouring, indeed, with which his rival Batoni found great fault, the most inexperienced person may perceive that it is not faultless, as the flesh tints are already altered by time, at least in some of his works. Lastly, in the Difesa are some personal remarks regarding Mengs, which, if Ratti, from respect to his late deceased friend, thought it right to omit them in his life of him, printed in 1779, might with still greater propriety have been spared in this subsequent work.
[95] See the Elogio di Pompeo Batoni, page 66, where the illustrious author, who, to his other accomplishments, adds that of painting, expatiates at length, and in the style of a professor, on this wonderful talent of Batoni.
[96] The decoration of the Villa Pinciana, in which the prince Borghesi has given encouragement to so many eminent artists, is an undertaking that deserves to be immortalized in the history of art.