GIOVANNI BATTISTA, one of the greatest authorities on Italian art, was born at Rome about 1610. The circumstances of his career were peculiarly fitted to qualify him for writing on the fine arts. He practised composition both in prose and verse, and acquired the ease and skill of a professional littérateur. He cultivated, at Frescati, the friendship of Domenichino, and caught from the lips of that great artist a knowledge and appreciation of the great principles of art. He was also himself a painter of no mean standing; as his picture of the "Crucifixion between two Saints," in the church of San Giovanni della Malva at Rome still testifies. Accordingly, at his death in 1679, Passeri left behind him in manuscript a collection of lives of painters, sculptors, and architects, which has been considered one of the most authentic of art histories. In general its facts are accurate, its criticisms just, and its theories profound. It was first published by an anonymous editor, supposed to be Bottari, in 1772, and presented a biographical account of Italian art from 1641 to 1673 inclusive.