Lippo di Dalmatio,--who was supposed to have been a Carmelite, till Bianconi, in Piacenza's edition of Baldinucci, produced proofs of his wife and family,--came from the school of Vitale, and from his predilection for the Mother of Christ acquired, like Jacopo d'Avanzi, the byname of "Lippo dalle Madonne." There goes a tale that he gave instruction to Saint Catherine Vigri, of whom certain miniatures and an Infant Christ on panel still remain. A better union of tints, and some easier arrangement in the folds of his draperies, though with a profusion of gold lace, is all that discriminates him from the crudeness and exility of the ancient style. Such, however, was his felicity in the character of Madonnas, that they captivated Guido Reni,[167] who used to repeat that Lippo, in expressing at once the majesty, the sanctity, and the mildness of the divine mother, must have been assisted by a celestial power. Some of these Madonnas are said to be in oil colours, with dates of 1376, 1405, and 1407. Guido is likewise the guarantee of certain frescoes representing facts of Elia, painted with great spirit by the same master. After 1409, the last date of Lippo's pictures, the School of Bologna somewhat declined, nor could it be otherwise: no vigorous school ever sprang from the timid precepts of a portrait painter, and Dalmatio possessed more of that than of historic power: this, rather than the supposed imitation of certain images imported from Constantinople, was the cause of that insignificance which consigned, with few exceptions, his school and successors to oblivion. Of Pietro Lianori, Michele di Matteo, Bombologno, Severo and Erçole Bologna, Catherina di Vigri, Giacopo Ripanda, Marco Zoppo, time has left little but the names, and of that little, enough not to regret the loss of what vanished. Let us not, however, be too fastidious to repeat what tradition has persevered to report of some; if Bombologno may be left to the votaries of the crucifix, and Catherina to the rubric that saints her, Michele Lambertini claims the attention of artists for a mellowness of tints which Albano judged superior to the tints of Francia; Giacopo Ripanda for the dangers which he braved in designing the groups of the Trajan pillar;[168] and Marco Zoppo as no despicable competitor of Andrea Mantegna, and the reputed master of Francesco Francia. Francesco Raibolini, surnamed Francia, born in 1450, may be considered as the head of the Bolognese school, because his works appear to have been framed on that collective principle which became its leading feature in the sequel, and was probably the result of the long theory that preceded his practice, assisted by that readiness in design which distinguished him as a goldsmith, chaser,[169] and die-cutter, professions to which he had been trained up from his infancy, and which he raised to celebrity before he attained complete manhood.