Lansdowne MS 802-803

folio.

Two Volumes, being part of a critical and descriptive Catalogue of Drawings, chiefly of the Italian School, and formerly belonging to Padre Resta, an eminent collector.

There is some reason for supposing that this collection passed into the hands of Elias Ashmole, Esq. who has transcribed the present volumes, and occasionally inserted some fragments of the original catalogue, written by the Padre himself in Italian. The first volume contains an account of only a part of the collection, the description of which seems to have filled several volumes. It is interspersed with a great number of historical remarks on the different masters, chiefly compiled, especially from Vasari, but containing nevertheless many original anecdotes that may be found extremely useful. There is also a vindication of the Bolognese School against Vasari; and at fo. 261, copies of two letters from Annibale to Ludovico Caracci. To each volume of the collection of drawings the original owner had prefixed a very quaint and fanciful title, which might induce some persons to believe that he was a little deranged in his understanding. The second volume contains "An alphabetical catalogue of the Painters in the collection, with the drawings of each respective master, referring to the several books in which they are placed;" with "A chronological view of the Painters" from the year 1200 to 1670. Qu. whether the rest of these volumes, with the drawings themselves, be remaining in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford?