, called also Cigoli and Civolt, an eminent painter, was born in 1559,
, called also Cigoli and Civolt, an eminent painter, was born in 1559, at the castle of Cigoli, in Tuscany, and became the scholar of Santi di Titi, but after travelling into Lombardy, studied the works of the first masters, and particularly Correggio. He had some taste, also, for poetry and music, but soon became exclusively attached to his particular art. He was employed by the grand duke in the palace Pitti, and afterwards at Rome and Florence exhibited some excellent specimens of his genius. He gave a new style to the Florentine school; but to say that perhaps he was superior to all his contemporaries, that he approached nearer than any other the style of Correggio, are expressions of Baldinucci, which none will believe who has seen the imitations of that master by Baroccio, the Caracci, or Schidone. Cardi, to judge from his pictures as they are now, availed himself with success of Correggio’s chiaroscuro, joined it to learning in design, and set it off by judicious perspective and a far livelier colour than that of the Tuscan school; but his pictures do not exhibit that contrast of tints, that impasto, that splendour, that graceful air, those bold fore-shortenings, which constitute the character of the. heads of Lombard art. In short, he was the inventor of an original but not a steady style; that which he adopted at Rome differs from his former one. If the general tone of his colour be Lembardesque, his draperies resemble those of Paolo Veronese, and sometimes he approaches the depth of Guercino.