In the earlier part of his career, the impetuosity of his genius led him
astray; he usually painted his pictures in oil or fresco without
preparing either drawing or cartoon; and his first style was gigantic
and unnatural. Subsequently, however, he checked this impetuosity, and
it was in the middle of his life that he produced his best works. His
fertility of invention was wonderful; his genius grappled with and
conquered the most arduous difficulties of the art, and he shows his
powers in foreshortening in the most daring variety. He was rapid and
bold in design, yet was selected by Boschini as a model of correctness;
hence his drawings, though numerous, are highly esteemed. His Rape of
the Sabines, in the Palazzo Imperiali at Terralba, near Genoa, has been
highly extolled. It is a large work full of life and motion, passionate
ravishers and reluctant damsels, fine horses and glimpses of noble
architecture, with several episodes heightening the effect of the main
story. Mengs declared he had seen nothing out of Rome that so vividly
reminded him of the chambers of the Vatican.