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</noinclude><section begin="s1"/>FRANCESCHILJEAN BAPTISTE, BARON (1766-1813), French

genera1, , was born at Bastia on the 5th of December 2766 and

entered the French service in 179 3., He took part in the operations

in Corsica in the following year, and received a wound at

the siege of San Fiorenzo. After this he left the island and was

appointed a field officer in the French Army of Italy, with which

he served from 1795 to 1799. He served as a general officer in

the campaign of Marengo, in the Naples campaign of 1805-1806,

and in the Peninsular War from 1807 to 1809. He was created

a baron by Napoleon. He commanded a. Neapolitan brigade

in the Russian War of 1812, and after the retreat from Moscow

took refuge, with the remnant of his command, in Danzig,

where in the course of the siege of 1813 he died on the 19th..of

March., ,-

Two other generals of brigade in Napoleonis wars borethe

name of Franceschi, and therthree have often been mistaken for

each other. The first was born at Lyons, JEAN BAPTISTE MARIE

FRANCESCHI-DELONNE (1767-1810), who served throughout

the Revolutionary campaign on the Rhine, took part in the

campaign of Zürich in 1799, and distinguished himself very

greatly by his escape from, and subsequent return to, Genoa,

when in 1800 Masséna was closely besieged in that ~city. He

became a cavalry colonel in 1803, was promoted general of

brigade on the field of .Austerlitz, . and served in southern Italy

and in Spain on the stan' of King Joseph Bonaparte. During

the Peninsular War he won great distinction as a cavalry general,

and in 1810 Napoleon made him abaron. At this time he was a

prisoner in the hands of the Spaniards, into whose hands he had

fallen while bearing important dispatches during the campaign

of Talavera. He was harshly treated by his captors, and died

at Carthagena on the 23rd of October 1810. The second, was

Fimngors FRANCESCHI-LOSIO (1770-1810), born at Milan, who

entered the French Revolutionary army in 1795. He» served

through the Italian campaign of 'I7 Q6-97, and subsequently,

like F ranceschi-Delonne, with Masséna at Zurich and at Genoa,

and at the headquarters of King Joseph in Italy and Spain.

He was killed in a duel by the Neapolitan colonel Filangieri

in 1810. ~- ~ . .

<section end="s1"/>

<section begin="s2"/>FRANCESCHI, PIERO (or PIETRO) DE' 1 (c. ' 1416-1492),

Italian painter of the Umbrian school. This master is generally

named Piero della Francesca (Peter, son of Frances), the tradition

being that his father, a woollen-draper named Benedetto, had

died before his birth. This is not gcorrect, for., the mother's

name was Romana, and the father continued living during

many years of Piero', s career. The painter is also named Piero

Borghese, from his birthplace, Borgo San Sepolcro, in Umbria.

The true family name was, as above stated, F ranceschi, and

the family still exists under the name of Martini-Franceschi.

Piero, first received a scientific education, and became an

adept in mathematics and geometry. This early bent of mind

and course of study influenced to a large extent his development

as a painter. He had more science than either Paolo Uccello

or Mantegna, both .of them his contemporaries, the former

older and the latter younger. Skilful in linear perspective,

he fixed rectangular planes in perfect order and measured them,

and thus got his hgures in true proportional height. He preceded

and, excelled Domenico Ghirlandajo in projecting shadows,

and rendered with considerable truth atmosphere, the harmony

of colours, and the relief of objects. He was naturally therefore

excellent in architectural painting, and, in point of technique,

he advanced the practice of oil-colouring in Italy.-The

earliest trace that we find of Piero as a painter is in 1439,

when he was an apprentice of Domenico V eneziano, and assisted

him in painting the chapel of S. Egidio, in S. Maria, Novella of

Florence. Towards 1450 he is said to have been with the same

artist in Loreto; nothing of his, however, can now be identified

in that locality. In 1451 he was by himself, painting in Rimini,

where a fresco still remains. Prior to this he had executed

some extensive frescoes in the Vatican; but these were destroyed

when Raphael undertook on the same walls the “ Liberation

of St Peter ” and other paintings. His most extensive extant

series of frescoes is in the choir of S. Francesco in Arezzo, -the

“History of: the Cross, ” beginning with legendary subjects of

the death and burial of Adam, and going on to the entry of

Heraclius into Jerusalem after the overthrow of Chosroes.

This series is, in relation to its period, remarkable for effect,

movement, and mastery of the nude. The subject of the “ Vision

of Constantine ” is particularly vigorous in chiaroscuro; and a

preparatory design of the same composition was so highly effective

that it used to be ascribed to Giorgione, and might even (according

to one authority) have passed for the handiwork of Correggio

or of Rembrandt. A noted frescoin Borgo San, Sepolcro, the

“ Resurrection, ” may be later than this series; it is preserved

in the Palazzo de' Conservatori. An important painting of the

“ Flagellation of Christ, ” in the cathedral of Urbino, is later

still, probably towards 147O.' Piero appears to have been much

in his native town of Borgo San Sepolcro from about 1445, and

more especially after 1454, when he finished the series in Arezzo.

He grew rich there, and there he died, and in October I4Q2 was

buried. . .

Two statements made by Vasari regarding "Piero della Francesca"

are open to much controversy. He says that Piero became blind

at the age of sixty, which cannot be true, as he continued painting

some years later; but scepticism need perhaps hardly go to the

extent of inferring that he was never blind at all. Vasari also says

that Fra Luca Pacioli, a disciple of Piefoiin scientific matters,

defrauded his memory by appropriating his researches without

acknowledgment. This is hard upon the friar, who constantly

reverence for his master in the sciences. One of

shows a great V,

Pacioli's books was published in I 509, and speaks of Piero as still

it has been propounded that Piero lived to the

living. ' Hence

patriarchal age of ninety-four or upwards; but, as it is now stated

that he was buried in 1492, we must infer that there is some 'mistake

in relation to Pacioli's remark- rhaps the date ~of. writing was

several years earlier than that olpe publication. Piero was known

to have left a manuscript of, his own on perspective; this remained

undiscovered for a long time, but eventually was found by E. Harzen

in the Ambrosian .library of Milan, ascribed to some supposititious

“ Pietro, Pittore di Bruges.” The treatise shows a knowledge of

perspective as dependent on the oint of distance.

In the National Gallery, Londron, are three paintings attributed

to Piero de' F ranceschir Another work, a profile of Isotta da Rimini,

may safely be rejected. The “ Baptismof Christ, ” which used to be

the altar-piece of the Priory of the Baptist in Borgo San Sepolcro,

is an important example; and still more so the “ Nativity, ” with the

Virgin neeling, and five angels 'singing to musical instruments.

This is a very interesting and characteristic specimen, and has

indeed been praised somewhat beyond its deservings on aesthetic

grounds., ,

Piero's earlier style was ener etic but unrefined, and to the last

he lacked selectness of form and' feature. The types of his visages

are peculiar, and the costumes (as especially in the Arezzo series)

Singular. He used to work assiduously from clay models swathed

in real drapery. Luca Signorelli was his pupil, and probably to

some extent Perugino; and his own influence, furthered by that of

Signorelli, was potent over all Italy. Belonging as he does to the

Umbrian school, he united with thatlstyle something of the Sienese

and more of the Florentine mode.

Besides Vasari and Crowe & Cavalcaselle, the work by W. G.

Waters, Piero delia Francesca (1899) should be consulted.

(W. M. R.)

<section end="s2"/>

<section begin="s3"/>FRANCESCHINI, BALDASSARE (161 I-1689), Italian painter

of the Tuscan school, named, from Volterra the place of his

birth, Il Volterrano, or (to distinguish him from Ricciarelli)

Il Volterrano Giuniore, was the son, of a sculptor in alabaster;

At a very early age he learned from. Cosi1jno-Daddi some of the

elements of art, and he started as an assistant to his father.

This employment being evidently below the level of his talents,

the marquises I nghirami placed him, at the age of sixteen, under

thelflorentine painter Matteo Rosselli., In the ensuing year he

had' advanced sufficiently to execute in Volterra some frescoes.

skilful in foreshortening, , followed by other frescoes for the

Medici family in the Valle della Petraia. In 16 S2 the marchese

Filippo Niccolini, being minded to employ F ranceschini upon the

frescoes for the cupola and back-wall of his chapel in'S. Croce,

Florence, despatchedhirn to various parts of Italy to perfect

his style. The painter, in a tour which lasted some months,

took more especially to the qualities .distinctive of the schools

of Parma andlBologna, and in a measure to those of Pietro

da Cortona, whose acquaintance he made in Rome. He then

undertook the paintings commissioned by Niccolini, which<section end="s3"/><noinclude>{{Reflist}}{{Div col end}}</div></noinclude>

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