though the manner of Francia Bigio may be considered somewhat feeble, from the fact that he performed his works laboriously and with too much solicitude; he 'was nevertheless remarkably exact in observing the proportions demanded by art in all his figures, and was most careful in every respect.
In the cloister of the Servites which precedes the church, is a picture which Francia Bigio was commissioned to execute in competition with Andrea del Sarto; this represents the Marriage of Our Lady, and here the master has well expressed the great faith of San Giuseppe, whose countenance betokens the gladness which he experiences no less clearly than the awe by which he is inspired. In this scene Francia Bigio has introduced a figure who is giving the customary accolade to the bridegroom, as it is still usual to do in our own days on the o^ccasion of a wedding; and in another figure, which is nude, he has well expressed the anger and disappointment felt by one of the suitors of the Virgin, who is breaking in pieces the rod which had failed to produce the desired blossom.[1] Of this and many other pictures by the same master we have the drawing in our book. Beautiful women with graceful head-dresses form the company of Our Lady, these being subjects which Francia Bigio ever delighted to depict, but there is not a single part of the whole work which he did not elaborate with the utmost care and forethought. There is a woman, for example, with an infant in her arms, who is about to return to her home, and who is inflicting a slight correction on another child, which has seated itself and will not go forward, as she would have him do; this last is w'eeping, and with one hand to its face, in a very graceful attitude, is half concealing its countenance. In a word, it may be truly affirmed that in every circumstance, small or great, which belongs to this story, the master has given proof of the utmost care and love, impelled by the desire which he felt to show other artists and good judges of Art, the veneration in which he held its
- ↑ The legend of the Roman Church to which this is an allusion, will bo in the recollection of our readers, but such as it may have escaped are reminded that among the numerous suitors of the Virgin, he whose dry and lifeless rod should flourish into a lily was, according to the legend, the husband appointed to her by the Divine will. It is needless to add that the rod of Joseph alone was found to have done so.
