Of the immediate pupils of the Bolognese academy, the first undoubtedly is the modest and tender Domenichino. Though participating in the common fault of his school, loaded design, yet his heads have a feeling and expression approaching to the sublime in sentiment. The Communion of St Jerome is pronounced by Poussin to be one of the three best pictures in the world--the Transfiguration of Raphael, and Volterra's Descent from the Cross, completing the number. We shall not easily forget our impressions on beholding the Transfiguration and the Communion side by side in the Vatican. Guido's name instantly calls up all our associations of the graceful and the benign; but his expression is too often artificial: perhaps in his works we first decidedly mark those academic abstractions and refinements of precept, which, formed independently of nature, hastened the downfall of art in this its last resting place. Guercino wants power and individual character; Albani is agreeable and poetic, the painter of the Loves and Graces. Carlo Dolci, a Florentine, imitates Guido. Lanfranco is bold, but incorrect in his design; as are likewise Pietro Cortona, and Luca Giordano, mannerists in whom is lost every distinction of character. Contemporary with the Carracci, but self-taught, and belonging to no school, was Caravaggio, strong but ungraceful in design, harsh in the disposition of his lights, but of undoubted genius:--his pupil was Spagnoletto. The history of painting in Italy, at least of painting animated by genius, may be closed with the name of Salvator Rosa, who died in 1673, the only native landscape painter which that delightful and picturesque country has produced. The old masters, indeed, have left the grandest and most perfect landscape compositions--but these are subservient to the figures. Rosa succeeded in both, and stands nobly, but peculiarly, original in an age of decay and mannerism.
The eighteenth century opens under the auspices of Carlo Maratti, an affected mannerist, but not altogether devoid of talent. After his death, in 1713, his rivals, Garzi and Cignani, sustained for a little the expiring reputation of the Roman school. But it is quite unnecessary to continue the narrative; the state of the arts during the early part of this century has already been noticed, and the names of Bianchi, Costanzi, Manchini, the early contemporaries of Canova, and of the revival, are now forgotten. The only artists of those times still regarded with some respect, are, Solemena, who died in 1747; Sebastian Conca, in 1764; and Pompeo Battoni, who brings down the history of the art to 1787; Mengs belongs to Germany.