Sabbatini, Lorenzo

, called Lorenzin di Bologna, was one of the most genteel and most delicate painters of his age. He has been often mistaken for a scholar of Raphael, from the resemblance of his Holy Families in style of design and colour to those of that master, though the colour be always weaker. He likewise painted Madonnas and angels in cabinet- pictures, which seem of Parmigiano nor are his altar-pieces different the most celebrated is that of S. Michele at S. Giacomo, engraved by Agostino Caracci, and recommended to his school as a model of graceful elegance. He excelled in fresco; correct in design, copious in invention, equal to every subject, and yet, what surprises, rapid. Such were the talents that procured him employ, not only in many patrician families of his own province, but a call to Rome under the pontificate of Gregorio XIII. where, according to Baglioni, he pleased much, especially in his naked figures, a branch he had not much cultivated at Bologna. The stories of St. Paul in the Capella Paolina, Faith triumphant over Infidelity in the Sala regia, and various other subjects in the galleries and loggie of the Vatican, are the works of Sabbatini, always done in competition with the best masters, and always with applause: hence among the great concourse of masters who at that time thronged for precedence in Rome, he was selected to superintend the different departments of the Vatican in which office he died in the vigour of life, 1577. ¹