two youths stand with their arms interlaced, and a female chides her crying child. As the fresco was all but finished, a day of great so lemnity for the Servites came on, and some of the monks took upon themselves to remove the screens which covered it. The wrath of Francia Bigio was such that he walked straight from his lodging to the convent, and with a mason’s hammer almost struck out the heads of the Vir gin and some males and females. This act of choler was so much approved by Francia Bigio’s fellow craftsmen that none of them would consent to restore the parts he had destroyed, and though as late as 1515 he was peremp- * torily ordered to put the wall into its original state, he successfully resisted every threat; and the fresco remains to this day in the condition in which he left it. 1 Enough has been preserved to justify Vasari’s eulogy of the ar tist’s diligence; and the soft contrasts of tints as well as the vague fusion of colour which rivals that of Del Sarto in rosy airiness and transparent delicacy, is an instance of the ability he possessed, and the great practise he had attained. The composition is correct according to the most rigid maxims, but there is a stilted affectation in some poses which cannot be commended. The drapery is fair,' but has too many straight or parallel folds. The nude is well proportioned, but the drawing of the parts might be more careful, and the transitions from light to shadow should be better defined. Francia Bigio, however, never did anything better, and the Sposalizio of the Scrvi is his masterpiece in fresco. Whilst he was thus giving evidence of talent in mural decoration, he strove to gain a reputation as a portrait- painter, and in that capacity achieved perhaps the most flattering of successes. Every frequenter of the Louvre knows a sombre por trait of a young man standing, with his elbow on a ledge, at an opening through which a landscape and two little < Vas. IX. 99, and Biffoli’s records in annot. ibi.
