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THE FIFTEENTH CENTUliY. Chap. X. .*360 advantage, to make note of them for the sake of tracing the style of Giovanni Battista Caporali, 1 the pupil of Vannucei, the plagiarist of Cesariano's translation of Vitruvius. 2 It has been stated, without proof as far as pi’esent re search can avail, that Giovanni Battista Caporali was boi'n about 1476. 3 As an apprentice under his father, he might have witnessed the progress of the altarpiece of Castiglione del Lago; and one might expect to find in the productions of his manhood some reminiscence of the paternal manner. He went early in the 16 ,h century (? 1507. 1508) to Rome, where he had the personal acquaintance of Peru- gino, Pinturicchio, Bramante, and Signorelli, and fre quented the company of Aretino. 4 It was natural that if he studied these masters collectively, he should mingle inspirations from them with those derived from his father. A fi’esco (of a fair class) in the semidome of S. Croce in Gerusalemme at Rome offers an example of such a mixture. It has already led to the inquiry, whether such a man as Antoniasso might not have had a shai'e in it; one might now be led to look deeper into the secrets of its origin. The Eternal in glory, at the highest part of the semidome is Umbrian after the fashion of a follower of Bonfigli, and is attended by angels in the mould of Melozzo. S. Helen, below, adoi’ed by a kneeling car dinal, is shaped on the model of Pinturicchio, though of Virgin’s head which is small, is injured. Manner of Bartolommeo Caporali, before the period of the Castiglione panels. 1 There is no account of Barto lommeo Caporali’s death, hut the will of his widow Brigida is pre served (dated 1521). It purports to be drawn up “in the dwelling of the heirs of Bartholomseus Capo- ralis, pictor” (Mariotti uh. sup. p. 81). 2 We have not collated Cesaria- no and Caporali, but the annota tors of Vasari state that the five hooks with notes and plans of which the latter consists, are co pied from the former (annotators, Vas. VI. 58). 3 Mezzanotte, Life of P e- rugino, p. 271. 4 SeeanteainPeruginop.233,and in Pinturicchio p. 292. When he published his Vitruvius in 1536 at Perugia, he sent a copy to Aretino who acknowledges it in a letter from Venice of Oct. 3.1537, calling the painter Bitte, as Vasari does (Vas. VI. 57) and reminding him of their old relations at Home. — See Aretino , Lettere. 8° Paris, Vol. I. p. 134. verso.