Both these last masters had for their pupil Gian Angiolo Borroni, who, being taken under the patronage of the noble house of Crivelli, was retained many years at Bologna, during the period the Creti rose into repute. Monti and Giangioseffo del Sole, to whose style he most attached himself, were then likewise flourishing at the same place. He was particularly employed in ornamenting the palaces of his patrons, who were desirous of having him with them, both at Cremona and at Milan, and in this last city he spent the best part of his life, dying very infirm in the year 1772. There too he left the chief portion of his works, some of which are upon a very large scale, distributed throughout its temples and palaces, besides others in different cities of the Milanese, more especially in his native place. In the cathedral remains his picture of S. Benedetto, in the act of offering up prayers for the city, of which he is the patron, to paint which the Cav. Borroni exerted his utmost degree of industry and art. Its success was sufficient indeed to have placed it upon an equality with the best of its age, had the draperies been folded with a degree of skill at all corresponding to the rest of the work; but in this he certainly was not happy. A little subsequent to him began to flourish Bottani, an artist who has been mentioned also in the Mantuan School; for, though a native of Cremona, he resided elsewhere. Good artists continue to flourish at Cremona to this day, whose merits, however, according to my plan, I leave untouched to the judgment of posterity.
Professors of minor branches of painting were not wanting in this school, one of whom, named Francesco Bassi, who had fixed his residence at Venice, was there called Il Cremonese da' Paesi. His powers were extremely varied and pleasing, united to great polish, powerful in his shadows, warm in his airs, while he often added to his pieces figures of men and animals in a pretty correct taste. They enrich many collections both in Italy and elsewhere, and some, as we find from the catalogue published in Venice, were included in Algarotti's. We must be cautious to avoid mistaking this painter for another Francesco Bassi, also a Cremonese, who is in that city called the younger. He was a pupil of the former in the art of landscape, and although much inferior to him, is not unknown in different collections. But a still higher rank in the same class is occupied by Sigismondo Benini, a scholar of Massarotti, the inventor of beautiful methods in his landscapes, with well retiring grounds, and with all the accidents of light well portrayed. His composition is polished, distinct, and coloured with equal harmony and vigour, though to continue agreeable he ought not to have transgressed the limits of landscape; for, by the addition of his figures, he diminished the value of his works.