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FRANCIABIGIO
1482-1525
Francesco di' Cristoforo, commonly called by his surname of Francia bigio, was the son of a Milanese weaver living in Florence, where he was born in 1482. He studied painting under Albertinelli, but early attached himself to Andrea del Sarto, whom he first met in the Pope's hall, copying the cartoons of Leonardo and Michelangelo, and whose friend and assistant he became. In 1513, he painted the fresco of the Marriage of the Virgin, in the court of the Annunziata, but was so indignant with the Servi brothers for uncovering the work before it was finished, that he gave the head of the Virgin a blow with a hammer, and if the friars had not rushed up and seized his hands, would have destroyed the whole painting. Traces of the damage wrought by the angry master's hammer are still to be seen in this fresco, which, with its bright colouring and graceful forms, is not unworthy of the place which it occupies among Andrea's works. When Andrea went to France, Franciabigio was invited to continue his series in the cloisters of the Scalzo, and painted
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