Footnote 7: To this period belonged that _Joannes Rimerici Pictor Arimini_, who is pointed out to us in 1386 by Count Marco Fantuzzi, in his _Monumenti Ravennati_, vol. vi. edited in the year 1804.
Footnote 8: In the above named volume (vi) we find mention of the son of this distinguished man: "_Magister Antonius Pictor quondam Mag. Bictini Pictoris de Arimino_, 1456."
Footnote 9: I made a mistake in my former edition in supposing him to have been a pupil of Bellino, who died in 1516. Concerning this Gio. who subscribed himself likewise Gio. Francesco, we observe that Oretti, in his _Memorie_, _MSS._, points out two pictures with the dates of 1459 and 1461. He adds, that there are accounts of his having been living in 1470.
Forli, as far as I can learn, boasts no artist earlier than Guglielmo da Forli, a pupil of Giotto. His paintings in fresco, conducted at the Francescani, no longer survive, nor in the church of that order could I meet with any specimen of the thirteenth century, besides a Crucifix by some unknown hand. From that period, perhaps, a succession of artists appeared, there being no scarcity of anonymous paintings from which to conjecture such a fact; but history is silent until the time of Ansovino di Forli, who has already been included among the pupils of Squarcione. I have my doubts whether this artist could be the master of Melozzo, a name venerated by artists, inasmuch as he was the first who applied the art of foreshortening, the most difficult and the most severe, to the painting of vaulted ceilings. Considerable progress was made in perspective after the time of Paolo Uccello, with the aid of Piero della Francesca, a celebrated geometrician, and of a few Lombards. But the ornamenting of ceilings with that pleasing art and illusion, which afterwards appeared, was reserved for Melozzo. It is observed by Scannelli, and followed by Orlandi, that in order to acquire the art he studied the works of the best ancient artists, and though born to fortune, he did not refuse to lodge with the masters of his times, in quality of attendant and compounder of their colours. Some writers give him as a pupil to Pietro della Francesca. It is at least probable, that Melozzo was acquainted with him and with Agostino Bramantino, when they were employed at Rome by Nicholas V., towards the year 1455. However this may be, Melozzo painted on the ceiling of the great chapel, at Santi Apostoli, the Ascension of our Lord, where, says Vasari, "the figure of Christ is so admirably foreshortened as to appear to pierce the vault; and in the same manner the angels are seen sweeping through the field of air in two opposite directions." This painting was executed for Card. Riario, nephew to Pope Sixtus IV. about the year 1472; and when that edifice required to undergo repairs, it was removed and placed in the Quirinal palace in 1711; where it is still seen, bearing this inscription: "Opus Melotii Foroliviensis, qui summos fornices pingendi artem vel primus invenit vel illustravit." Several heads of the apostles which surrounded it, and were likewise cut away, were deposited in the Vatican palace. Taken as a whole, he approaches Mantegna and the Paduan School nearer than any other in point of taste; finely formed heads, fine colouring, fine attitudes, and almost all as finely foreshortened. The light is well disposed and graduated, the shadows are judicious, so that the figures seem to stand out and act in that apparent space; dignity and grandeur in the principal figure, and white drapery that encircles it; with delicacy of hand, diligence and grace in every part. What pity that so rare a genius, pronounced by his contemporaries "an incomparable painter, and the splendour of all Italy,"[10] should not have had a correct historian to have described his travels and his pursuits, which must have been both arduous and interesting, before they raised him to the eminence he attained, in being commissioned by Card. Riario to execute so great a work. At Forli, there is still pointed out the façade of an apothecary's shop, displaying Arabesques in the first style; and over the entrance appears a half-length figure, well depicted, in the act of mixing drugs, said to have been the work of Melozzo. Vasari states, that in the villa of the Dukes of Urbino, named the Imperial, Francesco di Mirozzo, from Forli, had been employed a long while previous to Dosso; and it would appear that we are here to substitute the name of Melozzo, to correct one of those errors which we have so frequently before remarked in Vasari.