Print collector's quarterly (6.1916)

tone of urbane elegance, he only adds to the confusion of
a naturally amateurish style of composition. But, being
himself a painter, he understood one part of his subject:
his comments, though far from critical, have the de-
cisiveness of professional opinion; and whatever its
faults, his work has at least the merit of offering us a
fairly good reflection of contemporary opinion. Finally,
he had a first-hand knowledge of many of the artists of
whom he wrote. His two notices, brief as they are,
make up the fabric which later biographers have em-
broidered or pieced out, and are still the principal
source of our knowledge of the two Leoni.
“Lodovico,” Baglione tells us, “made seals, en-
graved admirable intaglios, and modelled figures in
relief of every sort, with exquisite art. He also (work-
ing with steel cones) made medals of bronze and of
other metals, in the manner of the Ancients. He was
likewise a painter and executed well enough numerous
pictures, — so that he seemed to have been endowed
by Nature with every gift.” But Loclovico’s greatest
renown came from a talent peculiar to himself. “He
was famous in his time for making portraits in wax,
especially those done alia macchia, so called because he
did them after seeing his sitter only once (solo con vedere
una volta il soggetto'), — by stealth, so to speak, — and
for this he was famosissimo. He made the finished like-
ness alone by himself, entirely from memory — a gift
such as was granted to no other; and these portraits
were admirable for spirit, vivacity, and above all for
their resemblance. . . . There was not a Prince of his
time whom the Padovano had not drawn from life, nor
Princess nor Dama Romana whose portrait was not
to be found in his work; — the faces were done in col-

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