1035. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.
Francia Bigio (Florentine: 1482-1525).
Francesco di Cristoforo Bigi (this picture is signed FRA CP = Franciscus Cristophori pinxit), commonly called Francia Bigio, was the son of a weaver at Milan, and "devoted himself to the art of painting, not so much (Vasari tells us) because he was desirous of fame, as that he might thus be enabled to render assistance to his indigent relations." He was at first the pupil of Albertinelli (645), and afterwards formed a close friendship with Andrea del Sarto, in conjunction with whom he produced his first important work in 1513, in the small cloister of the Servi. It was here that occurred the famous scene, described by Vasari, with the Friars, who, having uncovered Bigio's fresco of the Sposalizio before the painter considered it finished, so enraged him that he defaced some of the finest heads in it with a mason's hammer, and would have destroyed the whole but for forcible intervention. Neither he nor any other painter could be induced to repair the injuries, which remain to this day. Bigio was, as we may see from this picture, an admirable portrait-painter—an excellence which he owed, says Vasari, to his patient and modest industry. He was "a great lover of peace, and for that reason (adds Vasari drily) would never marry."
The young man wears on his breast the cross of the Knights of Malta. The letter in his hand bears the date 1514. On the parapet is an inscription: tar: vblia: chi: bien: eima (slowly forgets he who loves well)—
Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
Tennyson: The Princess.