Two other panels, which, in type and execution, bear a marked resemblance to the frescoes of St. Cecilia’s chapel, and were evidently painted soon afterwards, are in a better state of preservation. The first, an “Annunciation,” with St. Jerome and the Baptist, in the Bologna Gallery, is a picture of the same class as the earlier Annunziata altar-piece, and is distinguished by the refinement and gentleness of the Virgin’s face. The other is the beautiful “Madonna of the Rose Garden,” originally painted for the Gonzagas, into whose service Francia’s old friend, Lorenzo Costa, had passed after the exile of the Bentivogli. It remained in the Mantua collection till 1786, and after experiencing many changes of hands, became the property of the Empress Josephine, until in 1815 it passed from Malmaison into the Pinakothek of Munich. The child lies on a bed of flowery grass, stretching out its little arms with a smile of delight to its mother, who is in the act of sinking upon her knees in a rapture of loving adoration. A trellis of tall roses, which might have been painted by a Botticelli or Filippino, fences the garden round, and, in the pleasant meadows beyond, horses are feeding on the banks of a winding stream, and church-towers rise in the distance. Nowhere is the transparent delicacy of Francia’s colouring more pleasing than in the silver-grey tones of the Virgin’s robe, while her countenance wears the same gentle air of tender melancholy which haunts his conceptions in the same way as the smile on Leonardo’s faces, and the deeper sadness of Botticelli’s Madonnas. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER V. LAST WORKS AND DEATH, A.D. 1509-1517. We have few details of the last years of Francia’s life, but the dates that mark some of his pictures show us that his powers were not impaired, nor his activity diminished with advancing age. It would be interesting to know how he was affected by the return of his friends, the Bentivogli, who in 1511 entered Bologna again, on the retreat of the Papal troops before the French army under Gaston de Foix. The fickle Bolognese were as glad to be rid of the Pope as they had ever been to expel their former tyrant, and destroyed the statue which Julius II. had erected of himself on the principal square. But the Bentivogli only enjoyed their return to power during a very brief space. In a few months the conquering advance of the French army was checked by the death of Gaston de Foix in the battle of Ravenna; the Pope’s troops again entered Bologna, the Bentivogli fled once more, and the city was heavily fined and deprived of many of its former privileges.