GUERCINO, " the squint-eyed," properly GTAN-FRANCESCO BARBIERI, a celebrated master of the Bolognese school of painting, was b. in 1000at Cento, a pretty town not far from Bologna. Guereino gave early proof of his intuitive love of art by sketching with the roughest materials on the house-door a "Virgin" so full of artistic promise. that his father,an spite of the straiteued circumstances of the family, took immediate measures for training the boy's talents, by securing for him the best tuition in drawing which the place afforded. In 1616 he opened an academy at Cento, to which pupils flocked from all quarters. Front 1619 to 1623 he visited different. cities of Italy, particularly Rome and Venice, to improve himself by the study of the works of other eminent painters. In 1642 he went to live at Bologna, where he died in 1666. Some of the curly paintings of Guereino bear perceptible traces of his admiration of Caravaggio's style, both in their powerful effects of deep coloring and strong fidelity to nature, while they much surpass those of the great realist in dignity and refinement of tone. They
are deficient, however, in accuracy of design. His works, which are too numerous for notice, are to be found in the galleries a Rome, Bologna, Parma, Modena, Perugia, and Paris. His master-pieces are considered to be the fresco of "Aurora," which decorates the ceiling of one of the casinos of the Roman villa Ludovisi; the famous "Persian Sibyl," and "Saint Petronilla," both in the Capitoline gallery. at Rome. At Cento, the artist's house, Casa di Guereino, is carefully preserved, with its fine paintings and fresco decorations, and is the chief object of interest to those who visit the place. The church of Cento also contains several fine works of this master, who had an intense love for his birthplace.