FRANCESCO, a celebrated Italian artist, was born of a noble family at Bologna in 1490. His parents had intended him for the mercantile profession, but his own genius soon opened up for him a successful career in the province of the fine arts. Becoming a pupil of the great ornamental decorator Giulio Romano, who was then working at the palace Del T in Mantua, he speedily outstripped all his fellow-disciples in design and colouring. His growing excellence secured the patronage of the Duke Federigo; and in 1531 he was sent by that potentate to France, with strong recommendations to King Francis. There he continued till his death in 1570, introducing Roman taste into France, and a new era into the history of French art. The efforts of his genius were especially expended on Fontainebleau. The walls of that palace were ornamented with frescoes and stucco-work, the halls were studded with ancient Roman marbles, and the gardens were adorned with bronze casts of some of the most famous sculptures of antiquity. It seemed, in fact, as if a miniature Rome had sprung up in the middle of France. (See Vasari's Lives of the Painters, &c., and Lanzi's History of Painting.)