The city of Bologna was visited in 1268 by Oderigi of Gubbio (fl.
1268-1295), who had the benefit of personal intercourse with Giotto in
Rome. Bologna produced a skilled miniature painter in Franco Bolognese
in the fourteenth century, but gave birth to few native painters
of merit. Until Francesco Cossa removed from Ferrara to Bologna in
1470, art in the City of the Colonnades was in an undeveloped state.
The school of Bologna, which may be considered as an offshoot of the
Ferrarese school, was further strengthened by the arrival of Lorenzo
Costa.
Lorenzo Costa (1460-1535), who had been a pupil of Francesco Cossa at
Ferrara, worked for the Bentivogli family in Bologna until 1509. In
that year he was induced to fix his abode in Mantua at the instance of
the Marquis Francesco Gonzaga and his wife Isabella d’Este, whose court
painter, Andrea Mantegna, had died three years earlier. Costa there
painted about 1510 his _Court of Isabella d’Este in the Garden of the
Muses_ (No. 1261), which is signed