FRANCIABIGIO (1482–1525)  , Florentine painter, The name of this artist is generally given as Mercantonio Franciabigio; it appears, however, that his only real ascertained name was Francesco di Cristofano; and that he was currently termed Francia Bigio, the two appellatives being distinct . He was born in Florence, and studied under Albertinelli for some months . In 1505 he formed the acquaintance of Andrea del Sarto; and after a while the two painters set up a shop in common in the Piazza del Grano . Franciabigio paid much attention to anatomy and perspective, and to the proportions of- his figures, though these are often too squat and puffy in form . He had a large stock of artistic knowledge, and was at first noted for diligence . As years went on, and he received frequent commissions for all sorts of public painting for festive occasions, his diligence merged in something which may rather be called workmanly offhandedness . He was particularly proficient in fresco, and Vasari even says that he surpassed all his contemporaries in this method—a judgment which modern connoisseurship does not accept . In the court of the Servites (or cloister of the Annunziata) in Florence he painted in .1513 the " Marriage of the Virgin," as a portion of a series wherein Andrea del Sarto was chiefly concerned . The friars having uncovered this work before it was quite finished, Franciabigio was so incensed that, seizing a mason's hammer, he struck at the head of the Virgin, and some other heads; and the fresco, which would otherwise be his masterpiece in that method, remains thus mutilated . At the Scalzo, in another series of frescoes on which Andrea was likewise employed, he executed in 1518–1519 the " Departure of John the Baptist for the Desert," and the " Meeting of the Baptist with Jesus"; and, at the Medici palace at Poggio a Caiano, in 1521, the " Triumph of Cicero." Various works which have been ascribed to Raphael are now known or reasonably deemed to be by Franciabigio . Such are the " Madonna del Pozzo," in the Uffizi Gallery; the half figure of a " Young Man," in the Louvre (see also FRANCIA); and the famous picture in the Fuller-Maitland collection, a " Young Man with a Letter." These two works show a close analogy in style to another in the Pitti gallery, avowedly by Franciabigio, a " Youth at a Window," and to some others which bear this painter's recognized monogram . The series of portraits, taken collectively, placed beyond dispute the eminent and idiosyncratic genius of the master .

Two other works of his, of some celebrity, are the " Calumny of

Apelles," in the Pitti, and the " Bath of Bathsheba " (painted in 1523), in the Dresden gallery .