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| Anonymous artist in Bologna Seven men on gallows drawing ca. 1630 Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Inigo Jones Plumed saddle-horse ca. 1640 drawing Yale Center for British Art |
"Aristotle considered that poetry must imitate persons of better quality than those of one's time, or else worse, or else of similar quality, and he proved it with the example of painting: because Polygnotus imitated the best, Pauson the worst, and Dionysios the similar. There is no doubt that many others among the ancients used these approaches, and indeed, Apelles, Zeuxis, Timanthes, Parrhasius, and others imitated the best. Pliny recounts that Piraeicus gained the greatest glory by imitating base things like barbers' and cobblers' shops as well as asses, food and the like. Callicles also imitated mean things; Calates painted little panels of comic subjects; Famulus the Roman was esteemed in the painting of humble things; but Antiphilos imitated both the best and the worst. Quintilian affirms that Demetrius, though a sculptor, followed similitude so much that he had no regard for beauty. Now, in our times Raphael and the Roman school of the century mentioned above, following the manners of the ancient statues, have imitated the best more successfully than others. Bassano was a Piraeicus in depicting the worst. And many of the moderns have developed similar things to what they saw, including Caravaggio, who was so excellent in coloring and who can be compared to Demetrius because he left behind the idea of beauty in order to follow similitude entirely."
– Giovanni Battista Agucchi, from his Treatise on Painting (1646) translated and quoted in Italy in the Baroque edited by Brendan Dooley (New York: Garland, 1995)
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| Alessandro Algardi Man with arm outstretched, pointing downwards before 1654 drawing British Museum |
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| attributed to Sisto Badalocchio St Sebastian before 1647 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Pier Francesco Mola Putti in clouds ca. 1651-52 drawing-for-fresco British Museum |
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| attributed to Giovanni Lanfranco Virgin and Child with saint appearing to a monk ca. 1634-46 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Giovanni Lanfranco Study for lunette - Virgin and Child with St Joseph and angel ca. 1639-41 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
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| Alessandro Maganza Soldier with goblet before 1630 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
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| Pier Francesco Mazzuchelli (Il Morazzone) King David with Angels ca. 1625-26 wash drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Camillo Procaccini Transfiguration before 1629 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Andrea Sacchi Studies of a man 1640s drawing Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide |
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| Antonio Tempesta Ostrich Hunt before 1630 drawing British Museum |
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| Ferdinand Bol Man in his study wearing Oriental costume ca. 1635-40 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| attributed to Francesco Borromini Study for entablature of Baldacchino at St Peter's, Rome with heraldic Barberini sun ca. 1624 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
"Clearly the twisted columns [of the bronze Baldacchino at St. Peter's in Rome] were meant to recall the Early Christian tradition, and perhaps also Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem as it was then believed to have looked. Otherwise it is unlikely that the columns had any special symbolic significance. As for their ornamentation, the vine tendrils on the antique columns had been replaced by laurels, which Urban VIII as a devotee of literature had taken as his personal emblem, and among the laurels can be seen his ubiquitous bees. The imposts of the columns boast another of Urban's emblems, the "sun in splendour" used in heraldry as a symbol for justice and here alluding to that most princely of the virtues. It is both strange and significant that on this monument over the tomb of the Apostle Peter, the ancient Christian symbols have had to make way for the heraldic charges and devices of the Barberini family."
– Torgil Magnuson, from Rome in the Age of Bernini (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1982)
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| attributed to Francesco Borromini Study for canopy of Baldacchino in St Peter's, Rome ornamented with heraldic Barberini bees ca. 1624 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |