Baldinucci, Philip

, of Florence, an useful biographer of the academy of la Crusca, was born in 1624. Having acquired great knowledge in painting and sculpture, and made many discoveries by studying the works of the best masters, he was qualified to gratify cardinal Leopold of Tuscany, who desired to have a complete history of painters. Baldinucci remounted as far as to Cimabue, the restorer of painting among the moderns and he designed to come down to the painters of the last age inclusive. He only lived to execute part of his plan, which was published in his life-time, in 3 vols. After his death (in 1696), three more appeared, and a new edition of the whole in ^1731. The work, without being free from errors, is a valuable addition to Vasari. He published also, in Italian, a “Treatise on Engraving, and the lives of the principal Engravers,” 1686, 4to. ¹