A “Nativity,” painted for his intimate friend Paolo Zambeccaro at Bologna, is now in the Picture Gallery of Forli, but the frescoes with which he adorned Zambeccaro’s villa have all perished. The same fate has been shared by the other frescoes which he painted in different palaces of Bologna, and what is most of all to be regretted, the “Judith” and “Dispute of Philosophers” which he executed for Giovanni Bentivoglio were destroyed in the sack of the tyrant’s palace by the mob, on his expulsion in 1507. Vasari, speaking from the testimony of eyewitnesses, declares the Judith to have been the finest work which Francia ever painted, and describes minutely the splendour of the surroundings introduced, the horses, banners, and armed guards brought on the scene as belonging to the camp of Holofernes. The fame of this fresco had also reached the ears of Raphael, who begged for a sketch of the work, but unfortunately not even a drawing remains to give us an idea of the manner in which Francia treated a theme so unlike his usual objects. A “Lucrezia” by his hand, perhaps the very panel which he painted for Guido Baldo, Duke of Urbino, is now in England,[8] but has nothing classical in character. The Roman matron raising her eyes to heaven as she plunges the dagger into her breast is in feature and expression the exact counterpart of Francia’s saints, and but for the uplifted hand might be a St. Catharine or St. Agnes with perfect propriety. On the other hand drawings in the style of ancient bas-reliefs by Francia, which in type and character admit no doubt as to their genuineness, meet us occasionally both in foreign galleries and London exhibitions, and show a much truer appreciation of classical art. Such are the “Judgment of Paris” in the Albertina collection, Vienna, and that beautiful group of Greek youths before an altar exhibited by Mr. J. O. Robinson in the Grosvenor Gallery of 1879, in which, the grace of antique art is delicately blended with the yearning expression of Christian devotion. These and others that resemble them were designs for engravings probably intended for the use of Marc Antonio Raimondi, who served his first apprenticeship in Francia’s workshop, and engraved several of his master’s pictures before he left for Venice in 1509. More than one of this celebrated artist’s engravings bear marks of this early training in the school of Francia, an influence soon to be effaced by the very different associations and examples of the Roman world, in the midst of which his later years were spent. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. THE FRESCOES OF ST. CECILIA’S CHAPEL, 1506-1509.