thus restored a capital performance, representing Charity, under the emblem of a Woman surrounded by three Children. The report of this happy discovery soon spread; all the artists and amateurs ran to behold it. The best judges, among whom was Mengs, acknowledged the genuine style of Correggio, and valued the performance at £2,000. The Earl of Bristol bought it from Lovera for about £1,500. An engraving has since been made from it. The value was afterwards the subject of a suit at law between Hunterspergh and Lovera.
LIONARDO DA VINCI.
This illustrious artist, denominated by Lanzi "the
Father of Modern Painting," was also an eminent
sculptor, architect, and engineer, the natural son of
Pietro da Vinci, notary to the Florentine Republic.
Vasari and his annotators place his birth in 1445;
but Durazzini, in his Panegyrics on Illustrious Tuscans,
satisfactorily proves that he was born in Lower
Valdarno, at the castle of Vinci, in 1452.
PRECOCITY OF DA VINCI'S GENIUS.
At a very early age, Lionardo da Vinci showed
remarkably quick abilities for everything he turned
his attention to, but more particularly for arithmetic,
music, and drawing. His drawings appeared something
wonderful to his father, who showed them to
Andrea Verocchio, and that celebrated artist, great-
