Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/382

330 two subjects, the Baptist taking leave of his parents, and his meeting with Christ in the desert. Both in these frescoes and in his easel-pictures, this artist imitates Andrea's manner closely, and follows his practice of borrowing figures from Albert Dürer's engravings. This is especially the case in an early panel, intended for the front of a cassone, now in the Uffizi, in which Hercules is represented standing on a pedestal under a portico, and groups of soldiers and scholars are introduced.

Like his more illustrious friend, Franciabigio was an admirable portrait-painter, and several of his male heads have at different times been ascribed to Andrea and even to Raphael. A young knight of Malta, by his hand, is in the National Gallery, and a portrait of Pier Francesco de' Medici's steward may be seen at Windsor Castle, while several other good examples are in other private collections in England. Franciabigio assisted Ridolfo Ghirlandajo to design triumphal cars and arches for the wedding of Duke Lorenzo, in 1518, and painted a fresco of the Triumph of Cicero at Pope Leo's villa of Poggio a Caiano. In 1523, he finished another cassone picture on the story of David and Bathsheba, which is now at Dresden, and died in the following year, at the age of forty-two. Vasari describes him as a very gentle and amiable man, who took warning from his friend Andrea's experiences, and always refused to marry, saying that a wife only brings sorrow and anxieties. According to the old saying, "Chi ha moglie, ha pene e doglie."

One of Franciabigio's best pupils was Francesco Ubertini, surnamed Bacchiacca, who began by learning