, one of the most admired painters of the Italian school, was born
, one of the most admired painters of the Italian school, was born in 1625, at Camerino in the march of Ancona. When quite a child he is said to have pressed out the juices of flowers, which he used for colours in drawing on the walls of his father’s house. This propensity most probably induced his parents to send him to Rome at eleven years old; where, by his manner of copying the designs of Raphael in the Vatican, he obtained the favour of Andrea Sacchi, and became his pupil. From the grace and beauty of his ideas he was generally employed in painting Madonnas and female saints; on which account he was, by Salvator Rosa, satirically called Carluccio delta Madonna. He was far from being ashamed of this name, and in the inscription placed by himself on his monument (nine years before his death), he calls it gloriosum cognomen, and professes his particular devotion to the Virgin Mary. The pope, Clement XI. gave him a pension, and the title of Cavaliero di Cristo and he was appointed painter in ordinary to Louis XIV. He died at Home, loaded with honours, in 1713, at the advanced age of eighty-eight. Extreme modesty and gentleness were the characteristics of his disposition; and Jiis admiration of the great models he had studied was such, that not content with having contributed to preserve the works of Raphael and the Caraccis in the Farnese gallery, he erected monuments to them in the Pantheon, at his own expence. Several plates are extant, etched hy him in aquafortis, in which he has displayed abundant taste and genius.