early productions had brought
him into notice, he studied with extreme application, and made such
advance as to raise his works into a comparison with those of the most
admired masters of the time. From his acting as a continual censor of
his own works, he became distinguished amongst his fellow-pupils as an
accurate and expressive designer; his colours were the truest to nature;
Mengs, indeed, found nothing to desire in his works, except a somewhat
larger proportion of elegance. That he might devote his whole powers to
the art, Domenichino shunned all society; or, if he occasionally sought
it in the public theatres and walks, this was in order better to observe
the play of the passions in the features of the people--those of joy,
anger, grief, terror and every affection of the mind--and to commit them
vividly to his tablets; thus, says Bellori, it was that he succeeded in
delineating the soul, in colouring life, and calling forth heartfelt
emotions, at which all his works aim. In personal character he is
credited with temperance and modesty; but, besides his want of
sociability, he became somewhat suspicious, and jealous of his master.

In Rome, Domenichino obtained employment from Cardinals Borghese,
Farnese and Aldobrandini, for all of whom he painted works in fresco.
The distinguished reputation which he had acquired excited the envy of
some of his contemporaries. Lanfranco in particular, one of his most
inveterate enemies, asserted that his celebrated "Communion of St
Jerome" (painted for the church of La Carita towards 1614, for a
pittance of about ten guineas, now in the Vatican Gallery, and
ordinarily, but most irrationally, spoken of as the second or third best
oil picture in the world) was an imitation from Agostino Caracci; and he
procured an engraving of this master's picture of the same subject (now
in the Gallery of Bologna), copies of which were circulated for the
purpose of proving that Domenichino was a plagiarist. There is in truth
a very marked resemblance between the two compositions. The pictures
which Zampieri painted immediately afterwards, representing subjects
from the life of St Cecilia, only increased the alarm of his
competitors, and redoubled their injustice and malignity. Disgusted with
these cabals, he left Rome for Bologna, where he remained until he was
recalled by Pope Gregory XV., who appointed him principal painter and
architect to the pontifical palace. In this architectural post he s