_Francia_ (Ferrarese-Bolognese: 1450-1517).
Of Francesco Raibolini's life the two most interesting things
are these: first, that great artist though he came to be,
he never painted a picture, so far as we know, till he was
forty; and secondly, the intimate connection, exemplified in
him, between the artist and the craftsman. He was the son of
a carpenter, and, like so many of the greatest old masters,
was brought up to the goldsmith's trade. The name of Francia
was that of his master in goldsmith's work, and was adopted by
him in gratitude.[101] He attained great skill in his trade,
especially as a die-engraver and a worker in "niello" (inlaying
a black composition into steel or silver). He was appointed
steward of the Goldsmiths' Guild in 1483, and afterwards became
master of the Mint--a post which he held till his death.
In some of his earlier pictures the hand of a goldsmith is
seen--in the clear outline, the metallic and polished surface,
and the minuteness of detail; and even on some of his later
and more important works, such as 179, he signed himself
"Francia _aurifex_ (goldsmith) Bononiensis." It was with Costa,
the Ferrarese artist (see 629), who migrated to Bologna, and
with whom he entered into partnership, that Francia learnt
the art of painting, and thus, though a Bolognese, he is
properly included in the Ferrarese School. His work marks the
culminating point of that school, just as Raphael's[102] marks
that of the Umbrian, and in these pictures (originally one
altar-piece, painted for the Buonvisi chapel in S. Frediano
at Lucca, where, says Vasari, it was held to be of great
value) we have some of his best work. Many of his pictures are
still at Bologna, including the one which some consider his
_chef d'oeuvre_, the Bentivoglio altar-piece in S. Giacomo
Maggiore. Francia is the most pathetic of painters. Raphael
is said to have remarked that Francia's Madonnas were the most
devoutly beautiful he knew,[103] and there is considerable
affinity between Francia and Perugino. But the Umbrian master
was more ideal; in Francia there are touches of realism. "It
will be observed in No. 180 that the Virgin is represented as
a middle-aged woman, and that the lids of the angels' eyes are
red with weeping. In spirit also they are different. Francia
makes his angels appeal to the spectator as if to enlist his
sympathy in the pathos of the tragedy, holding up the beautiful
tresses of Christ's hair to aid in the appeal. This Perugino
would never have done; his angels, and his saints also, are
always wrapt in a spiritual ecstasy to which Francia could not
attain" (Monkhouse: _In the National Gallery_, p. 173).
(179) On the throne are the Virgin and her mother, St. Anne, who offers
the infant Christ a peach, symbolical, as the fruit thus offered in
these pictures originally was, of "the fruits of the spirit--joy,
peace, and love." At the foot of the throne stands the little St. John
(the Baptist), "one of the purest creations of Christian art," holding
in his arms the cross of reeds and the scroll inscribed "Ecce Agnus
Dei" ("Behold the Lamb of God"). The discovery of Benedetto Buonvisi's
will has shown why the various saints were selected--St. Anne, because
the Buonvisi chapel was dedicated to her; St. Lawrence as the patron of
the founder's father; St. Paul as the patron of the founder's brother
and heir; St. Sebastian as the saint invoked in plagues (from which
calamity Lucca suffered in 1510); and St. Benedict as the patron of the
founder (G. C. Williamson's _Francia_, p. 111).
(180) This picture, which was the "lunette," or arch, forming the top
of the altar-piece, is a "pietà," _i.e._ the Virgin and two angels
weeping over the dead body of Christ. The artist has filled his picture
with that solemn reverential pity, harmonised by love, which befits
his subject. The body of Christ--utterly dead, yet not distorted nor
defaced by death--is that of a tired man whose great soul would not
let him rest while there was still His father's work to do on earth.
In the face of the angel at His head there is a look of quiet joy, as
of one who knows that "death is but a covered way that leads into the
light"; in the attitude and expression of the angel at the feet there
is prayerful sympathy for the sorrowing mother. The face of the mother
herself, which before was pure and calm, is now tear-stained and sad,
because her son has met so cruel a death--
What else in life seems piteous any more
After such pity?
Yet it bears a look of content because the world has known him. She
rests His body tenderly on her knee as she did when he was a little
child--thus are "the hues of the morning and the solemnity of eve,
the gladness in accomplished promise, and sorrow of the sword-pierced
heart, gathered into one human Lamp of ineffable love" (_Modern
Painters_, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 21).