passes over the least distinguished of his own country. It is true, he makes mention of one Galante da Bologna, who, he avers, designed better than Lippo, his master; but in this he is still taken to task by Malvasia, who includes Galante among the inferior pupils of Dalmasio.

Nevertheless, the germ of good painting was not wanting, as far as the times permitted it to exist, both in Bologna and throughout Romagna. Malvasia commends one Jacopo Ripanda, who long flourished at Rome, where, as is commemorated by Volterrano, he began to design the bassi-relievi of the Trajan Column; one Ercole, a Bolognese, who somewhat improved the symmetry of the human figure; one Bombologno, a carver of crucifixes, like Simone, but of more refined composition. He more particularly celebrates a Michel di Matteo, or Michel Lambertini; in whose commendation it may be enough to state, that Albano praised one of his pictures, supposed to be in oil, completed in 1443, for the fish-market, and even preferred it for its softness to those of Francia. The few which we still possess in our own times, both at the churches of S. Pietro and S. Jacopo, might be put in competition with the contemporary works of almost any master.

But the artist who produced an epoch in his school is Marco Zoppo, who having transferred his education under Lippo to the studio of Squarcione, rose to equal eminence with Pizzolo and Dario da Trevigi; and, like them, vied with the genius of Mantegna, and gave a farther spur to his exertions. He also studied some time in the Venetian School, where he painted for the Osservanti, at Pesaro, a picture of the Virgin on a Throne, crowned, with S. Giovanni the Baptist, San Francesco, and other saints, and signed it Marco Zoppo da Bologna Dip. in Vinexia, 1471. This is the most celebrated production which he left behind him; from which, and a few other pieces in the same church, and at Bologna, we may gather some idea of his style. The composition is that common to the quattrocentisti, particularly the Venetians, and which he probably introduced into Bologna, a style which continued to the time of Francia and his school, for the most part unvaried, except in the addition of some cherub to the steps of the throne, sometimes with a harp, and sometimes without. It is not a free and graceful style, like that of Mantegna, but rather coarse, particularly in the drawing of the feet; yet less rectilinear in the folds, and bolder, and more harmonious, perhaps, in the selection of the colours. The fleshes are as much studied as in Signorelli, and in others of the same age; while the figures and the accessories are conducted with the most finished care. Marco was, likewise, a fine decorator of façades, in which kind of painting he was assisted by his companion and imitator, Jacopo Forti, to whose hand is ascribed a Madonna, painted on the wall, at the church of S. Tommaso, in Mercato. In the Malvezzi collection there is also attributed to Jacopo a Deposition of the Saviour from the Cross; a work which does not keep pace with the progressive improvements of that age. The same remark will apply to a great number of others, produced about the same period, in the same city, which, towards the close of the century, displayed a striking deficiency in good artists. It was owing to this circumstance that Gio. Bentivoglio, then master of Bologna, wishing to ornament his palace, which, had fortune favoured him, would one day have become that of all Romagna, invited a number of artists from Ferrara and Modena, who introduced a better taste into Bologna, besides affording an occasion for the grand genius of Francia to develop itself likewise in the art of painting, as we shall proceed to shew.

This artist, whose real name was Francesco Raibolini, was, according to Malvasia, esteemed and celebrated as the first man of that age; and he might have added, in Bologna, where many so considered him; being there, as is attested by Vasari, held in the estimation of a god. The truth is, that he had a consummate genius for working in gold; on which account the medals and coins taken with his moulds rivalled those of Caradosso, the Milanese; and he was also an excellent painter, in that style which is termed modern antique, as may be gathered from a great number of collections, where his Madonnas rank at the side of those of Pietro Perugino and Gian Bellini. Raffaello, too, compares him with them, and even greater artists, in a letter dated 1508, edited by Malvasia, in which he praises his Madonnas, "never having beheld any more beautiful, more devotional in their expression, and more finely composed by any artist." His manner is nearly between that of these two heads of their schools, and participates in the excellence of both; it boasts Perugino's choiceness and tone of colours; while, in the fulness of its outlines, in the skill of the folding, and ample flow of the draperies, it bears greater resemblance to Bellini. His heads, however, do not equal the grace and sweetness of the former; though he is more dignified and varied than the latter. In the accessories of his landscapes he rivals both; but in landscape itself, and in the splendor of his architecture, he is inferior to them. In the composition of his pictures he is less fond of placing the divine infant in the bosom of the Virgin than upon a distinct ground, in the ancient manner of his school; and he sometimes adds to them some half figures of saints, as was customary with the Venetians of that period. On the whole, however, he approaches nearer to the Roman School; and, not unfrequently, as is noticed by Malvasia, his Madonnas have been ascribed by less expert judges to Pietro Perugino. He likewise produced works in fresco at Bologna, commended by Vasari; and both there and elsewhere are many of his altar-pieces yet remaining, displaying figures of larger dimensions than those usually painted by Bellini and Perugino; the peculiar merit of the Bolognese School, and by degrees extended to others, augmenting at once the grandeur of painting and of the temples it adorned.

But the chief praise due to him yet remains to be recorded, and this is, that he did not begin to exercise his pencil until he had arrived at manhood, and, in the course of a few years, displayed the rare example of becoming a scholar and a master, able to compete with the best artists of Ferrara and Modena. These, as we have mentioned, were invited by Gio. Bentivoglio, in order to decorate his palace. There, too, Francia was employed; and he was afterwards commissioned to paint the altar-piece of the Bentivogli chapel, in 1490, where he signed himself Franciscus Francia Aurifex, as much as to imply that he belonged to the goldsmith's art, not to that of painting. Nevertheless, that work is a beautiful specimen, displaying the most finished delicacy of art in every individual figure and ornament, especially in the arabesque pilasters, in the Mantegna manner. In process of time he enlarged his style; a circumstance that induced historians to make a distinction between his first and second manner. Cavazzoni, who wrote respecting the Madonnas of Bologna, wishes to persuade us that Raffaello himself had availed himself of Francia's models, in order to dilate that dry manner which he imbibed from Perugino. We shall award this glory to the genius of Raffaello, whose youthful performances at San Severo of Perugia, display a greater degree of softness than those of his master and of Francia; and after his genius, to the examples of F. Bartolommeo della Porta, and of Michelangiolo; leaving, we fear, no room to include the name of Francia. When Raffaello,