FRANCIABIGIO (14821525)

This article appears in Volume V10, Page 933 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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FRANCIABIGIO (14821525) , Florentine painter, The name of this artist is generally given as Mercantonio Franciabigio; it appears, however, that his only real ascertained name was Francesco di Cristofano; and that he was currently termed

Francia

Bigio, the two appellatives being distinct. He was born in Florence, and studied under Albertinelli for some months. In 1505 he formed the acquaintance of

Andrea

ANDREA, GIOVANNI (1275-1348)

del Sarto; and after a while the two painters set up a shop in common in the Piazza del Grano. Franciabigio paid much attention to anatomy and perspective, and to the proportions of- his figures, though these are often too squat and puffy in form. He had a large stock of artistic knowledge, and was at first noted for

diligence

DILIGENCE

. As years went on, and he received frequent commissions for all sorts of public painting for festive occasions, his

diligence

DILIGENCE

merged in something which may rather be called workmanly offhandedness. He was particularly proficient in fresco, and

Vasari

VASARI, GIORGIO (1511-1571)

even says that he surpassed all his contemporaries in this methoda judgment which modern connoisseurship does not accept. In the court of the Servites (or cloister of the Annunziata) in Florence he painted in .1513 the "

Marriage

MARRIAGE

of the Virgin," as a portion of a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

wherein

Andrea

ANDREA, GIOVANNI (1275-1348)

del Sarto was chiefly concerned. The friars having uncovered this work before it was quite finished, Franciabigio was so incensed that, seizing a mason's

hammer

HAMMER, FRIEDRICH JULIUS (1810-1862)

, he struck at the head of the Virgin, and some other heads; and the fresco, which would otherwise be his masterpiece in that method, remains thus mutilated. At the Scalzo, in another

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of frescoes on which Andrea was likewise employed, he executed in 15181519 the " Departure of John the Baptist for the Desert," and the " Meeting of the Baptist with Jesus"; and, at the Medici palace at Poggio a Caiano, in 1521, the "

Triumph

TRIUMPH (triumphus)

of Cicero." Various works which have been ascribed to Raphael are now known or reasonably deemed to be by Franciabigio. Such are the " Madonna del Pozzo," in the Uffizi Gallery; the half figure of a " Young Man," in the Louvre (see also

FRANCIA

); and the famous picture in the Fuller-Maitland collection, a " Young Man with a

Letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

." These two works show a close analogy in style to another in the Pitti gallery, avowedly by Franciabigio, a " Youth at a Window," and to some others which

bear

this painter's recognized monogram. The series of portraits, taken collectively, placed beyond dispute the eminent and idiosyncratic genius of the master. Two other works of his, of some celebrity, are the " Calumny of Apelles," in the Pitti, and the " Bath of Bathsheba " (painted in 1523), in the Dresden gallery.

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