Page:Cyclopedia of painters and paintings (IA cyclopediaofpain02cham).pdf/100

 principle of selection in form, he would have ranked with the greatest Italian painters. Between 1447 and 1452 Piero worked at Loreto, and at Rimini for Sigismond Pandolfo Malatesta, for whom he painted, in the Chapel of the Relics, S. Francesco kneeling before his patron saint, with two couchant greyhounds at his heels. The fresco, dated 1451, is an admirable piece of quattrocento work. We next find Piero at Arezzo painting the Legend of the Cross around the choir of S. Francesco, between 1453 and 1454, and then at Borgo San Sepolcro, employed upon an altarpiece on panel for the Confraternity of the Misericordia, which still exists in the Church of the Hospital, formerly occupied by the Brothers. Other works by this painter in his native town are a fresco of the Resurrection, in the Monte Pio, and another of St. Louis (1460), in the Municipal Palace. His Baptism of Christ, National Gallery, London, is pure in outline, and, like all his works, most carefully elaborated in every detail. In same gallery are a Nativity, portrait of Isotta da Rimini, and portrait of a Lady. In 1469 Piero went to Urbino, where he painted a Flagellation, now in the Cathedral, and an Apotheosis, with portraits of the Duke and his wife, Battista Sforza. The well-known profile portraits of this same ducal pair, in the Uffizi Gallery, are masterpieces of their kind, painted about 1472. Piero was the author of a highly esteemed Treatise on Perspective, the MS. of which belongs to the Saibanti Library, Verona.—Vasari, ed. Mil., ii. 487; C. & C., Italy, ii. 526; Burckhardt, 557; Cibo, Scuola Umbra, 26, 56; Ch. Blanc, École ombrienne; Lübke, Gesch. ital. Mal., i. 392.

FRANCESCHI, PAOLO (Paul Franchoys, Francesco Paolo de' Freschi, Paolo Fiammingo), born at Antwerp in 1540, died in Venice in 1596. Flemish-Venetian school; landscape, animal, history, and portrait painter, pupil and assistant of Tintoretto in Venice, whither he went when very young, and where he acquired reputation as one of the best landscape painters of the time. By order of the Venetian Senate he painted the large picture in the Ducal Palace, and for the Emperor Rudolph II. two Allegories. Works: Pope Alexander III. blessing the Doge Ziani, Ducal Palace, Venice; Descent from the Cross, St. John preaching, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, S. Maria dei Frari, ib.; Landscape with Prodigal Son, Academy, ib.; Pietà, Old Pinakothek, Munich.—Fétis, Les Artistes belges à l'étranger, i. 377.

FRANCESCHINI, MARCANTONIO, Cavaliere, born at Bologna in 1648, died there in 1729. Bolognese school; history painter, pupil of Gio. Maria Galli, and of Cignani, whose assistant he became. Called to Genoa, in 1702, to decorate the Hall of Public Counsel with pictures on the history of the Republic (destroyed by fire in 1777); invited to Rome by Pope Clement XI., in 1711, to Genoa in 1714, and to Crema in 1716, to execute fresco paintings. He was the head of a school in Northern Italy similar to that of Cortona in Lower Italy; adhered at first to manner of Cignani, but later developed a remarkable style of his own. Works: Magdalen, Birth of Adonis, Dresden Gallery; Charity, Magdalen, St. Borromeo during the Plague in Milan, Museum, Vienna; Venus and Cupid, Czernin Gallery, ib.; Jacob and Rachel, and others, Liechtenstein Gallery, ib.; Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, Brunswick Museum; Diana at the Chase, Copenhagen Gallery; S. Tommaso da Villanova dispensing Alms, Agostiniani of Rimini; Pietà, Agostiniani of Imola; BB. Fondatori, Serviti of Bologna. Frescos: Recess in Palazzo Ranuzzi, Cupola and Ceiling in Church of Corpus Domini, Tribune of S. Bartolommeo, Bologna; Corbels of Cupola, Piacenza Cathedral.—Brockhaus, vii. 61; Lanzi (Ros