his works, and the Grand Duke could never persuade him to return.  On his return to Rome, he abounded with commissions, and Pope Alexander VII. honored him with the order of the Golden Spur.  Cortona was also distinguished as an architect.  He made a design for the Palace of the Louvre, which was so highly approved by Louis XIV. that he sent him his picture richly set in jewels.  Cortona was a laborious artist, and though tormented with the gout, and in affluent circumstances, he continued to paint till his death, in 1699.

“KNOW THYSELF.”

Mario Ballassi, a Florentine painter born in 1604, studied successively under Ligozzi, Roselli, and Passignano; he assisted the latter in the works he executed at Rome for Pope Urban XIII.  His chief talent lay in copying the works of the great masters, which he did to admiration.  Don Taddeo Barberini employed him to copy the Transfiguration of Raffaelle, for the Church of the Conception, in which he imitated the touch and expression of the original in so excellent a manner as to excite the surprise of the best judges at Rome.  At the recommendation of the Cardinal Piccolomini, he was introduced to the Emperor Ferdinand III., who received him in an honorable manner.  Elated with his success, he vainly imagined that if he could imitate the old masters, he could also equal them in an original style of his own.  He signally failed in the attempt, which brought him into as much contempt as his former works had gained him approbation.

BENVENUTO CELLINI.

This eminent sculptor and famous medalist was in high favor with Clement VII., who took him into his service.  During the time of the Spanish invasion, Cellini asked the Pope for absolution for certain homicides which “he believed himself to have committed in the service of the church.”  The Pope absolved him, and, to save time, he added an absolution in prospectu, “for all the homicides thereafter which the said Benvenuto might commit in the same service.”  On another occasion, Cellini got into a broil, and committed a homicide that was not in the service of the church.  The friends of the deceased insisted upon condign punishment, and presumed to make some mention to the Pope about “the laws;” upon which the successor of St. Peter, knowing that it was easier to hang than to replace such a man, assumed a high tone, and told the complainants that “men who were masters of their art should not be subject to the laws.”

FRACANZANI AND SALVATOR ROSA.

The first accents of the “thrilling melody of sweet renown” which ever vibrated to the heart of Salvator Rosa, came to his ear from the kind-hearted Fracanzani, his sister’s husband, and a painter of merit.  When Salvator returned home from his sketching tours among the mountains, Fracanzani would examine his drawings, and when he saw anything good, he would smilingly pat him on the head and exclaim, “Fruscia, fruscia, Salvatoriello—­che va buono” (Go on, go on, Salvator—­this is good).  These simple plaudits were recalled to his memory with pleasure, in after years, when his fame rung among the polished circles at Rome and Florence.