Illam quidquid agat, quoquo vestigia vertat,
Componit furtim, subsequiturque decor.—Tibul.
[34] The harmony and union of colour of this artist would seem to excuse some trifling licenses, respecting which see Lazzarini upon the Paintings of Pesaro, p. 29.
[35] See Crespi, p. 74.
[36] Lacca, a dark red; terra d'ombra, umber.
[37] See p. 75. This MS. is said to have been drawn up previous to 1680. I believe it must be somewhere about 1670, Venanzi being therein described as still young. Notices of the artists of Pesaro and Urbino, collected by Giuseppe Montani, a good landscape-painter, who flourished some time at Venice, are now lost. (Of him, see Malvasia, vol. ii. p. 447.) I have recently read a letter from Sig. Annibale Olivieri to the Prince Ercolani, in which, computing the age of Venanzi, he is unable to make him out a pupil of Cantarini; from which it would appear that he was ignorant of the date of Venanzi's birth, which was about 1628. I admit that he could not have been long instructed by him, nor by Guido, and am more than ever confirmed in my conjecture that he was pupil to Gennari.
[38] Lunetta, an architectural term; meaning that semicircular space, or any other portion of a circle, placed in the walls between the different supports of ceilings.
[39] "To me it seems that painting ought to be considered excellent, the more it inclines towards relief." Bonarruoti, Letter to Varchi, inserted among the Lettere Pittoriche, vol.i. p. 7.
[40] There is a description of this painting contained in a letter of Algarotti, addressed to the learned Zanotti, dated Sept. 1760, in which, though in other works he observes Guercino to have excelled more in colouring than in design, yet respecting this specimen he declares, "that Pesarese himself would here have detected little or nothing to which to object. The folds, especially those of a cloth wrapped round the body of Christ, are admirable. The force and sweetness of his tints are equal to the bold relief of the picture, and the passion with which it is conducted.... I never beheld two figures better set off in one picture, nor did ever Guercino's close light and shade so well unite perhaps in effect as here; whilst the figures are pourtrayed within an apartment, in which that kind of light which affords such strong relief to objects, is represented with an admirable degree of truth."
[41] A pail or bucket maker.