About the same period flourished at Como, besides the Bustini,[61] the two brothers Gio. Paolo and Gio. Batista Recchi, whose chief merit was in painting frescos, disciples likewise of Morazzone. These artists decorated S. Giovanni, and other churches of their native place, two chapels at Varese, with others in the same vicinity. The second of them also became eminent beyond the state, particularly at S. Carlo in Turin, where he is placed near his master. His style is solid and strong, his colouring forcible, and in the skill of his foreshortening on ceilings, he yields to very few of his day. Pasta in his Guide for Bergamo has deservedly praised him on this score, when speaking of a Santa Grata, seen rising into heaven, a work, he observes, that is admirably delightful. In some of the chambers of the Veneria, at Turin, he was assisted by one Gio. Antonio his nephew. The Milanese Guide mentions several other artists, apparently, judging from their style, instructed by the preceding, such as Paolo Caccianiga, Tommaso Formenti, and Giambatista Pozzi.
Footnote 61: Benedetto Crespi, who possessed, according to Orlandi, a manner at once strong and elegant, with Antonio Maria, his son and pupil, and Pietro Bianchi, to whom he left his designs, all three called Bustini.
Whilst the Milanese School was thus hastening to its close, and no longer afforded masters of equal promise, either to the first or second of its series, its youth were compelled to have recourse to richer and more genuine sources, and at this period began to disperse in search of new styles. I omit the family of the Cittadini, which established itself at Bologna, or to say truth, I reserve it to its own school. Stefano Legnani, called Il Legnanino, in order to distinguish him from his father Cristoforo, a portrait-painter, became one of the most celebrated artists in Lombardy towards the beginning of this century, having studied the schools of Cignani at Bologna, and Maratta at Rome. In either of these cities he would have been esteemed one of the best disciples of these two masters, had he left there any of his productions; although in course of time he fell into a degree of mannerism. He is tasteful, sober, and judicious in his compositions, with a certain strength and clearness of colouring, not common among the disciples of Maratta. He became famous for his fresco histories, which are seen at S. Marco and at S. Angiolo, where there is also one of his battles, which is won by the protection of St. James the Apostle, which shews a pictoric fire equal to handling the most difficult themes. He left too a variety of works in Genoa, Turin, and Piedmont, besides his painting of the cupola at Novara, in the church of S. Gaudenzio, than which he produced nothing more truly beautiful.