lential fever,[1] the disease found him in so weak and exhausted a state, that his life was destroyed by its violence in a very few days. He had undertaken a work to be executed at a short distance from Bologna, but as this remained unfinished, or rather scarcely well commefted at his death, it was completed at his own desire by the Bolognese painter Prospero Fontana,[2] who acquitted himself of his task to admiration. The works of all the above-named artists were performed between the years 1506 and 1542, and there are drawings by them all in our collection of designs.[3]
THE FLORENTINE PAINTER, FRANCIA BIGIO.
[born 1482—died 1524.]
The labours which we perform in this life, in the hope of lifting ourselves from the earth and shielding ourselves from poverty, administering not to our own necessities only but to those of our kindred, are rendered sweet to us rather than painful, and the toils thus endured become an example and a wholesome nutriment to others. Then the righteousness of Heaven perceiving this, and regarding the uprightness of life with the aspirations towards excellence, the love of study and industrious efibrt herein displayed, is compelled to be more than commonly favourable and helpful to the genius of such an one, as in truth it was to that of the Florentine painter, Francia Bigio.[4]
- ↑ His death must have taken place after the year 1549, since he painted the Crucifix of San Salvatore in that year.
- ↑ Prospero di Silvio Fontana was born at Bologna in 1512, and died in 1597. He was the companion of Vasari, and the first master of Ludovico Caracci. He was a better painter of portraits than of historical representations, and had a daughter named Lavinia, who also painted well, but distinguished herself more in portraits than in any other branch of art.— Ed. Flor. 1832 -8.
- ↑ Two pictures by this master are mentioned by Förster as omitted here: the one a Madonna in Glory, with St. Aid, patron of the Blacksmiths, and St. Petronius, protector of Bologna, in the Gallery of Berlin; and the other is of similar character and arrangement, but the saints are S.S. Geminianus, Francis, Clara, and Mary Magdalen; this is in the Pinacothek at Munich.— German Translation of Vasari.
- ↑ Baldinucci calls this artist, Marcantonio Franciabigi, called Il
