Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II EARLY PICTURES In Calvi's Life of Francia we find stated that he was a pupil of Marco Zoppo, and the same statement is made by Malvasia in his "Felsina Pittrice." Morelli, however, shrewdly points out that, although the " assertion that he was a pupil of Zoppo may be read in books, it can nowhere be seen in his works, not even in his niello works, and still less in his paintings, which in technical matters all point to Lorenzo Costa" (" Italian Masters in German Galleries," p. 57). Marco Zoppo (1440-1498) was a Bolognese, who was a pupil of Squarcione at Padua, and therefore strongly partakes of the Paduan characteristics. He was above all a classicist, a humanist in his sympathies, so proud of being a pupil of Squarcione as to sign his picture as " Squar- cione's Zoppo," and yet so keen in affection towards his native Bologna as to declare himself as " Zoppo da Bologna." Influenced of course he was by Ferrarese work and teaching, but none of the Paduan School ideas did he pass on to Francia, and not a shred of Paduan feeling can be found anywhere in the works of our artist. We may well, therefore, reject the story told by Calvi and Malvasia as the fond imaginings of the Bolognese people, who would fain consider that their favourite master learnt his art from a Bolognese artist,and derived no influence from any outside sources. Evidence of another kind must also be considered. We have already seen the artist as a goldsmith working hard at the various crafts that he added to his own trade, and we have found him full of commissions. We find no picture of his bearing a date earlier than 1494, and only one with that date, and it is actually not until 1499 that we find him really well at work on pictures, when he was, we may suppose, nearly fifty years old, while we fi...