The revelation of Francia’s powers as a painter was the cause of much enthusiasm among his fellow-countrymen, who were never slow to applaud the efforts of native artists, and Giovanni Bentivoglio immediately commissioned him to paint an altar-piece for his family chapel in San Giacomo Maggiore. All the religious communities of Bologna now pressed Francia to decorate their altars, and Vasari says that by the end of a few years there was scarcely a church in the city that could not boast the possession of one of his paintings. The “Annunciation” of the Brera, the “Madonna and Angels,” at Munich, the Pietà, still at Bologna, in the Pinacoteca, followed each other in close succession. For his goldsmith friend, Jacopo Gambaro, who is recorded to have stood godfather with him to the child of a mutual friend, he painted the small “Holy Family,” at Dudley House, and for the church of San Giobbe, in Bologna, the “Crucifixion” of the Louvre. In this singular composition the patriarch Job is represented wearing a crown and lying at the foot of the cross, pointing upwards to a scroll on which we read the words: _Maiora sustinuit ipse_. This fine and original conception is marred by a hardness of drawing and colouring, which is a sufficient proof that it was executed at an early period; its surface has suffered considerable injuries which increase this unpleasant effect. A great step in advance is marked by the Bentivoglio altar-piece completed in 1499, and still occupying its original place in a chapel of San Giacomo Maggiore. Here the metallic harshness of the tints has given place to more harmonious tones and softer shadows, and the rich, glowing colours show that the artist had by this time acquired complete mastery of the means at his disposal. The saints are more vigorous and manly in type, and the heads are distinguished by more actual beauty than in any other of Francia’s pictures. St. Sebastian is again a prominent figure, and was used as a model a century later by the Carracci, who declared it to be one of the finest studies of human form in Renaissance painting. The two angels crowned with roses and standing on the steps of the Virgin’s throne are said to be portraits of children of the Bentivogli family. Others hover about the Virgin, and one, the loveliest of all, leans his head thoughtfully against a pillar and stretches out his little arms in wistful yearning to the child-Christ. In the same year Francia painted another Enthroned Madonna,[6] very similar to this one in style and grouping, by desire of a lady of the Manzuoli family, for the church of the Misericordia. Here the attendant saints are St. George and the Baptist, who point upwards to the child, whilst St. Stephen gazes mournfully at the stones of his martyrdom, which, rest on a book that he holds before him, and another of Francia’s sweet child-angels clasps a tall white lily between its folded hands, “with so much grace that it seems to belong to Paradise.” [_Vasari._]