Corner, John [Bearb.]: Portraits of celebrated painters, with medallions from their best performances: with authentic memoirs, from established authorities (London: published by Messrs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1825)

DOMENICO ZAMPIERI.

Annibale, commending in a letter the sweetness and peculiar majesty of
Guido’s performances, continues thus—“but Albano and Domenichino are
not the less worthy of praise. If they do not compose with the same ele-
gance and nobleness, they yet shew a different, and in some respects a supe-
rior kind of excellence.’'’ And Nicolas Poussin considered Domenichino’s
Communion of Saint Jerome one of the three best pictures in Rome, and
the painter, in point of expression, superior to all others.
Among his best paintings in oil are the Communion of St. Jerome, lately
in the French Museum, and now probably returned to its station, as the altar
piece of the church of that saint at Rome; the St. Agnes, engraved by
Strange; St. Francis at his devotions, and some others, in the collection of
the Marquis of Stafford; the calling of St. Peter and Andrew, in that of the
Rev. W. H. Carr; St. John writing the Revelations, in that of P. J. Miles,
Esq.; the Baptism of St. John, in that of Sir J. S. Agar, Bart.; and several
others, which embellish distinguished collections in this country. His fres-
coes in the chapel of St. Cecilia, and at the Grotta Farrata, comprise some
of the most noble productions of the art.
At length, overcome by the ill usage of some Neapolitan painters, who,
combined with his old enemies, impeded his labours at Naples, by continual
injuries, and even menaces against his life, Domenichino sunk into a wretched
melancholy. The dread of poison deprived him of nourishment, and his
death soon followed. His wife attributed it to poison, and there are but too
many reasons for crediting her assertions.
This memoir is chiefly abridged from the life of Domenichino by C. Landon.