A great advance on the early works to which we have alluded is visible in the large altar-piece of the “Madonna and Saints” which Francia painted in 1490. The commission was given him by a wealthy Bolognese citizen, Bartolommeo Felicini, who destined the picture for a chapel in the church of the Misericordia, a confraternity of nobles for the assistance of hospitals and other works of mercy. In this work, which Vasari calls his first, Francia represented the Virgin seated on a marble throne with six saints in the foreground, and a child-angel in a light blue robe playing the violin at her feet. The architectural background and general style of colouring are plainly the results of Costa’s teaching, but side by side with these Ferrarese features we find another influence which is altogether new. This is the Umbrian tendency, which appears here in so marked a manner as to make us ask what was the link which brought Perugino into connection with the great master of Bologna. Unfortunately no historical evidence exists to satisfy our curiosity, and there is no authority for the probable supposition that Francia visited Florence, and thus became acquainted with the Umbrian painter. But there is every reason to believe that works by Perugino had by this time found their way to Bologna, and among them probably the beautiful altar-piece which he painted for the church of San Giovanni in Monte, and which now hangs in the Pinacoteca, almost side by side with Francia’s Madonna of the Misericordia. It is worthy of mention that the same Umbrian character appears in a small Madonna[5] at Berlin, the sole remaining work of Antonio Crevalcore, a Bolognese artist chiefly known as a fruit and flower painter, between 1480 and 1500, and whose name is preserved in an epitaph by Francia’s friend, Girolamo Casio. Evidently Perugino’s influence had in some form or other reached Bologna, and had touched a responsive chord in Francia’s breast. For nowhere is this Peruginesque vein more strongly present than in the fine head of the St. Sebastian, in the Misericordia altar-piece, who is lifting his eyes to heaven with an intensity of expression to which Perugino himself has rarely attained. Henceforth this feature is constantly recurring in all Francia’s panels, animating his less ideal types, his fresher and more vigorous conceptions with a tender devotional feeling, and appealing to us in the peculiar half-timid, half-reproachful gaze of those Madonnas which we know so well. [Illustration: THE VIRGIN ENTHRONED, WITH SAINTS. BY FRANCIA. _In the Pinacoteca, Bologna._] * * * * *