Giacomo Cavedone was from Sassuolo, and hence included among the artists of the Modenese state by Tiraboschi, in whose work we may read the origin of his career. His genius was more limited, his spirit less animated, than those of the preceding; but being assisted by the Caracci in the right path, he attained to equal, and even greater celebrity. Leaving the intricacies of the art to the more enterprising, he fixed upon attitudes comparatively easy and devoid of foreshortening, gentle expressions distinct from the stronger passions, correct design in his figures, and more particularly in the hands and feet. Nature had endued him with promptness and facility; so that on occasion of designing models, or copying pictures, he with rare exactness took the substance of the subject, and afterwards reduced the whole by a more easy method in his own peculiarly resolute and graceful touch, in which he has always remained original. He was equally novel in his frescos; employing few tints, but so attractive, that Guido was induced to make him his pupil, and retained him at Rome as his assistant. Another striking characteristic was his strength of colouring, which he acquired from those Venetians themselves, who shone the masters of his masters. Here he attained to such excellence, that Albani, when asked whether there were any pictures of Titian's at Bologna, replied, there were not; but we may substitute the two at S. Paolo by Cavedone (a Nativity and an Epiphany) which look like Titian's, and are executed with a bolder hand. One of his most distinguished productions at Bologna is the S. Alò at the Mendicanti, in which Girupeno discovers, besides its fine design, a Titianesque taste that excites astonishment; and a French tourist entitles it a most admirable work, such as might be fairly attributed to the Caracci. The mistake indeed has occurred to persons of first rate tact, most frequently at Imola, on contemplating the beautiful picture of St. Stephen at that church; and yet more out of Italy, in regard to his pictures of private ornament, in which he is more than usually attractive and perfect. Judges know how to recognize Cavedone's hand by his very compendious manner of treating the hair and beards, as well as by that graceful and rapid touch, loaded with much lightish yellow, or burnt terra gialla. Length of proportions is likewise considered another peculiarity, with a flow of the folds more rectilinear than in other artists of the same school. Such ascendancy in the art was maintained by Cavedone during some years, till the death of a favourite son, who had early distinguished himself in the same career, united to other heavy sorrows, deprived him of his powers, and he subsequently executed nothing of importance. A specimen of that period is in possession of the fathers of S. Martino; an Ascension that excites only our compassion, with similar pieces met with throughout Bologna, that can boast no glimpse of grace. Still deteriorating, he was at length deprived of commissions and reduced to penury, which, in his old age, attended him to the tomb.