Soleri had a son, a painter of mediocrity, as may be seen in Alessandria in the sacristy of S. Francesco. The father, to propitiate his success in the art to which he destined him, had given him the two most illustrious names of the profession, calling him Raffaele Angiolo. But these names served only to flatter parental fondness.
With Alessandro Ardente and Giorgio Soleri we find mentioned a Jacopo Rosignoli of Leghorn, who was at that time painter to the court. His character is described in an epitaph placed over him at S. Thomas in Turin, which thus extols him: _quibuscumque naturæ amoenitatibus exprimendis ad omnigenam incrustationum vetustatem_; meaning grotesques, in which he imitated with success Perino del Vaga. We also find memorials of another painter to the court about the same time. The books of the Treasury call him Isidoro Caracca, and he seems to have succeeded to Ardente; for in 1595 his name begins to be found, to which others may perhaps add, in progress of time, his country, school, and works. To me it seems that persons who have received such a mark of distinction, ought at least not to be placed among the vulgar; nor should a notice of them be neglected when they fall in our way.
We may add to these some others of doubtful schools, as Scipione Crispi of Tortona, who has derived celebrity from the Visitation, placed in S. Lorenzo in Voghera; and in Tortona itself there is a picture representing S. Francis and S. Dominick with the Virgin, with his name, and the date 1592. Contemporary with Crispi was Cesare Arbasia, of Saluzzo, supposed by Palomino, but incorrectly so, to be a scholar of Vinci, as I mentioned when I spoke of him before.[73] He resided some time in Rome, and taught in the academy of St. Luke, and is mentioned with commendation by the P. Chiesa in his life of Ancina, as one of the first of his age. He went also to Spain, where, in the cathedral of Malaga, there still exists his picture of the Incarnation, painted in 1579; and there is an entire chapel painted by him in fresco in the cathedral of Cordova. He painted too the vault of the church of the Benedictines of Savigliano; in the public palace of his native place he executed also some works in fresco; and he was held in esteem by the court, who granted him a pension in 1601.