The actual honour of having first given Francia instruction in oil painting has been assigned to different artists, principally to Marco Zoppo and Lorenzo Costa, both of whom, we have seen, were living at Bologna about 1480. Little affinity exists between the Squarcionesque master’s style and that of Francia, but it is very possible that he may have been acquainted with the goldsmith and have given him his first lessons. Francia’s connection with Lorenzo Costa was of a much closer kind, and Ferrarese models had a large share in his future development. But his first essays in painting are so purely original in character and so free from foreign influences that we need not seek for any cause to explain the reason of their existence, or ask what master had a share in their production. He probably acquired the rudiments of tempera and oil painting from either Zoppo or another of the humbler men who frequented his workshop, and immediately tried his hand on small panels before venturing on the larger pictures in which his adoption of Costa’s method is apparent. These early works are very rare, but one excellent instance is to be seen in the “St. Stephen” of the Borghese Gallery, Rome. This interesting little piece was evidently one of his first efforts executed at a time when he was unskilled in the rules of composition and technical knowledge. The hand of the worker in metal is plainly seen in the sharp outline and polished surface of the panel, in the cold, hard brightness of the deacon’s red dalmatic which St. Stephen wears, and in the elaborate ornament of its embroideries. There is no attempt at rendering physical agony in the form of the kneeling martyr quietly raising his clasped hands as the stones fall heavily to the ground beside him. Even St. Stephen’s countenance is marked by a certain absence of expression, and is without the rapt devotion of Perugino’s faces, or the yearning gentleness of Francia’s own Madonnas. Yet there is a calm devoutness in the martyr’s bowed head, which seems to reflect the earnestness of the prayer which the parted lips have just breathed, and which in its very simplicity is full of touching beauty. Already we feel the presence of that strong religious sentiment which had first animated the creations of earlier masters, and of which Francia was to be almost the last exponent in the art of Italy.