FRANCHISE (from O. Fr. _franchise_, freedom, _franc_, free), in English law, a royal privilege or branch of the crown's prerogative subsisting in the hands of a subject. A franchise is an incorporeal hereditament, and arises either from royal grants or from prescription which presupposes a grant. Such franchises are bodies corporate, the right to hold a fair, market, ferry, free fishery, &c. The term is also applied to the right of voting at elections and the qualifications upon which that right is based (see REGISTRATION; REPRESENTATION; VOTE). In the United States the term is especially applied to the right or powers of partial appropriation of public property by exclusive use, or to a privilege of a public nature conferred on a corporation created for the purpose. FRANCIA (c. 1450-1517), a Bolognese painter, whose real name was Francesco Raibolini, his father being Marco di Giacomo Raibolini, a carpenter, descended from an old and creditable family, was born at Bologna about 1450. He was apprenticed to a goldsmith currently named Francia, and from him probably he got the nickname whereby he is generally known; he moreover studied design under Marco Zoppo. The youth was thus originally a goldsmith, and also an engraver of dies and niellos, and in these arts he became extremely eminent. He was particularly famed for his dies for medals; he rose to be mint-master at Bologna, and retained that office till the end of his life. A famous medal of Pope Julius II. as liberator of Bologna is ascribed to his hand, but not with certainty. As a type-founder he made for Aldus Manutius the first italic type.