The High Renaissance
 
&

Mannerism


   

Francesco Francia

(b Bologna, c. 1450; d Bologna, 1517).

He turned to painting c. 1485, and his first works already testify to the considerable technical accomplishment and gentle religious sensibility that remained constants of his art. His major surviving paintings are altarpieces, mostly images of the Virgin and saints, initially done for Bologna and later for nearby centres, notably Parma, Modena, Ferrara and Lucca. He also painted many small-scale devotional works and a few portraits. The apochryphal anecdote reported by Vasari that Francia died on seeing Raphael’s altarpiece of St Cecilia (Bologna, Pin. N.) is emblematic of the change in taste that suddenly made his art—like that of Perugino—look old-fashioned.

Le Calvaire avec saint Job au pied de la Croix
1514
 

Crucifixion
1500s
Panel
S. Giacomo Maggiore, Bologna