at Rome, was regarded rather in the light of an angel than a man, and had already executed some works at Bologna, he began a correspondence with Francia, urged to it by his letters; Raffaello became his friend; and, on sending to Bologna his picture of S. Cecilia, he intreated him, on discovering any error in it, to correct it; an instance of modesty in our Apelles, more to be admired even than his paintings. This occurred in 1518, in which year Vasari closes his life of Francia, who he declares died with excess of passion, on first beholding that grand performance. Malvasia, however, refutes him, by proving Francia to "have lived many years afterwards, and when aged and declining, even to have changed his manner;" and in what way, except upon the models of Raffaello? In his new manner he painted and exhibited, in a chamber of the Mint, his celebrated piece of S. Sebastian, which, according to a tradition handed from the Caracci to Albano, and from the latter to Malvasia, served as a studio for the Bolognese pupils, who copied its proportions with as much zeal as the ancients would have done those of a statue of Polycletes, or the moderns of the Apollo, or of the supposed Antinous of Belvidere. Albani has added that Francia, on perceiving the concourse of people increase round his picture, and diminish round the St. Cecilia of Raffaello, then dead, apprehensive lest they should suspect him of having executed and exhibited his own in competition with such an artist, instantly removed and placed it in the church of the Misericordia, where, at this time, there remains a copy of it. The precise year of his decease, hitherto unknown, has been communicated to me by the Sig. Cav. Ratti, who found on an ancient drawing of a female saint, now in possession of Sig. Tommaso Bernardi, a noble of Lucca, a memorandum of this event having occurred on the seventh day of April, 1533.

Francia, in addition to his cousin Giulio, who devoted himself but little to painting, gave instructions in the art to his own son of the name of Giacomo. It is often doubtful, as we find in the Gallery of the princes Giustiniani, whether such a Madonna is by the hand of Francesco Francia, or by that of his son, who, in similar pictures imitated closely his father's style, although, in Malvasia's judgment, he never equalled it. In works on a larger scale too, he is sometimes to be pronounced inferior, in comparison with his father, as in S. Vitale, at Bologna, where Francesco painted the cherubs round a Madonna, in his first manner, somewhat meagre, perhaps, but still beautiful and full of animated movements, while Giacomo drew the figures, representing a Nativity of our Lord, more soft in point of design, but with features less beautiful, and in attitudes and expressions bordering on extravagance. At other times, the son seems to have surpassed the father, as at S. Giovanni, of Parma, where there is no artist who would not wish to have produced that fine picture by Giacomo, marked with the year 1519, rather than the Deposition from the Cross, by Francesco. Elsewhere too, as in the picture of S. Giorgio, at the church of San Francesco in Bologna, he rivals, perhaps, the finest works by his father; insomuch that this specimen was ascribed to the latter, until there was recently noticed the signature I., (meaning Jacobus) Francia, 1526. He appears, from the first, to have practised a design approaching that of the moderns; neither have I observed in his paintings such splendid gildings, nor such meagre arms, as for some time distinguished the elder Francia. He rather, in progress of time, continued to acquire a more free and easy manner, insomuch that a few of his Madonnas were more than once copied and engraved by Agostino Caracci. His heads were extremely animated, though generally less select, less studied, and less beautiful, than his father's. He had a son, named Giambatista, by whom there remains, at S. Rocco, an altar-piece, and a few other specimens, displaying mere mediocrity.

Among the foreign pupils of Francia, the Bolognese enumerated Lorenzo Costa, and, indeed, he thus ranks himself, by inscribing under the portrait of Gio. Bentivoglio, L. Costa Franciae discipulus. True it is, that such inscriptions, as I have frequently found, might come from another hand; or that, granting he wrote it, he may have done so more out of regard to such a man, than for the sake of acquainting the world, as Malvasia contends, that he had been his sole master. Vasari is of a different opinion, introducing him to us at Bologna as an established artist, already employed in several considerable cities, and bestowing the highest eulogium on his earliest production, the S. Sebastiano at the church of S. Petronio, declaring it the best specimen in water-colours that had, till then, been seen in the city. Add to this, that Francia exhibited his first altar-piece in the Bentivogli chapel in 1490, a few years after he had devoted himself to the art; and there Costa placed the two lateral pictures, tolerably excellent in point of composition, and filled with those very spirited portraits of his in 1488. Now had he boasted only Francia for his master, of what rapid improvement must we suppose him to have been capable! Besides, would not his style almost invariably resemble that of Francia, at least in the works he produced at Bologna? Yet the contrary is the case; and from his less free, and sometimes ill drawn figures; from the coarser expression of his countenances, his more hard and dull colouring, and his abundance of architecture, with the taste shewn in his perspective, it is evident he must have studied elsewhere. Still I believe that he received the rudiments of his education in his own country; that then passing into Tuscany, he formed himself, not by the voice, but, as Vasari avers, upon the pictures of Lippi and Gozzoli; and that finally seeking Bologna, he painted for the Bentivogli, and resided also with Francia rather in quality of an assistant than a pupil. A farther proof I gather from Malvasia himself; that in the journals of Francesco, in which he read the names of two hundred and twenty pupils, he found no mention of Costa. In the rest, however, I concur; as to his having availed himself of the works of Francia, in imitation of whom a number of Madonnas are seen in the collections at Bologna, much inferior to the paintings of the supposed master; but occasionally not unworthy of being compared with them. Such is an altar-piece, divided into several compartments, removed from Faenza into the Casa Ercolani; a production characterized by Crespi, in his annotations to Baruffaldi, as being executed "with a fervour, a refinement, softness, and a warmth which may be pronounced altogether Raffaellesque." He particularly shone in his countenances of men, as may be seen from those of the apostles at S. Petronio, and from his San Girolamo, which there offers the finest specimen of his art. He was less employed in his own country than in Bologna, though he gave several pupils to the former; among others the celebrated Dosso and Ercole of Ferrara. He mostly resided at Mantua, at which court he was highly appreciated, although Mantegna had been his immediate predecessor, and Giulio Romano succeeded him. I may refer to what I there wrote respecting this artist.

A less doubtful pupil of Francia's was Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola. His portraits are much praised by Vasari, but his compositions much less so. He was by no means happy in all; and in particular one which he produced at Rimini, is severely criticised by the historian. There are various altar-pieces by him at Bologna and