dello Scalzo in Florence, where Franciabigio painted a
Last Supper. The two artists established a workshop to-
gether and Franciabigio went on to decorate the Medici
villa at Poggio a Caiano with del Sarto’s pupil PONTORMO,
executing the celebrated Triumph of Cicero there. Francia-
bigio was also noted for his introspective portraits of
young men. Other works which bear the stamp of Raphael
include the Madonna del Pozzo (c. 1508; Accademia, Flo-
rence).
Francis I (1494–1547) King of France (1515–47)
Francis was born at Cognac, the son of Charles of Valois
and Louise of Savoy, and was brought up as heir-pre-
sumptive to LOUIS XII, whose daughter Claude (died 1524)
he married in 1514. He and his sister Margaret (see MAR-
GUERITE DE NAVARRE) both received a sound education,
and Francis early manifested his lifelong love of hunting,
chivalric tournaments, and other vigorous sports.
Inheriting Louis’s policy of intervention in Italy, Fran-
cis soon after his accession led a campaign that resulted in
his victory (1515) at Marignano, southeast of Milan; this
left him in possession of Milan and Genoa and he also ac-
quired Parma and Piacenza. By 1523, however, these gains
had been negated by the intervention of the newly elected
emperor, CHARLES V, and Francis’s efforts to recover the
territories ended in his defeat and capture at the battle of
PAVIA(1525). Taken to Madrid as a prisoner, he signed a
treaty renouncing his Italian ambitions (1526). After this
his only territorial advance in the area was the conquest of
Savoy and part of Piedmont in 1536. Although he married
the emperor’s sister as his second wife (1530), Francis wa-
vered for the rest of his reign between allying himself with
the Hapsburg interests and conspiring against them.
At home Francis’s reign was marked by a considerable
increase in the monarch’s power. Initially sympathetic to-
wards the Protestants, he became from the mid-1530s in-
creasingly repressive in his attitude to religious dissent,
culminating in a shameful massacre of the Waldenses
(1545). Dominated by his mistresses and favorites, Fran-
cis was vain and extravagant, but it was through his pa-
tronage that the Italian Renaissance first made an impact
upon French art and architecture (see FONTAINEBLEAU).
He invited LEONARDO DA VINCIto France in 1515, and
CELLINI, PRIMATICCIO, ROSSO FIORENTINO, and SERLIOwere
later and more influential Italian visitors. Prompted by
Guillaume BUDÉ, Francis founded (1530) the lectureships
that were the basis for the Collège de France. Among the
humanist scholars and writers whom he encouraged was
Clément MAROT.
Further reading: Robert J. Knecht, Francis I (Cam-
bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Des-
mond Seward, Prince of the Renaissance: The Golden Life of
François I (New York: Macmillan, 1973).
Francis, Duke of Alençon (1554–1584) Duke of Anjou
(1576–84)
The youngest son of HENRY IIof France and CATHERINE DE’
MEDICI, Francis received the duchy of Alençon in 1566.
After his elder brother Henry had succeeded to the throne
(1574) as HENRY III, Francis succeeded him as duke of
Anjou. Although stunted in stature and scarred by small-
pox, from 1572 he was an apparently favored suitor of
ELIZABETH I, who nicknamed him her “petite grenouille”
(little frog). He visited her in England three times and in
1581 she even announced her firm intention of marrying
him. In 1580 the duke was offered limited sovereignty
over part of the Netherlands in return for aid against
Spain, but impatience at these limitations and military set-
backs induced him to turn his troops against Antwerp
(1583) in the so-called “French fury.” He was repulsed
and withdrew to France, where he died.Francis de Sales, St. (1567–1622) French churchman
and leader of the French Counter-Reformation
Born at Sales in Savoy, he was educated in Annecy, Paris,
and Padua. On being ordained (1593) he embarked on the
reconversion of much of the Calvinist population of
Chablais. In 1602 he was made titular bishop of Geneva,
making his headquarters at Annecy. An exceptionally ac-
tive preacher and prolific writer of letters, he inspired
many other French Catholic reformers, including St.
JEANNE FRANÇOISE DE CHANTAL, who founded the Congre-
gation of the Visitation in 1610. He wrote two classic
books of devotion, Introduction to the Devout Life (1608)
and Treatise on the Love of God (1616), in which he drew
up a scheme of devout life attainable by all, laity as well as
clergy. He was canonized in 1665.Francisco da Hollanda (c. 1517–1584) Portuguese artist
and art theorist
He was born in Lisbon, where his father, a Netherlands
miniaturist, had settled. King John III sent him to Rome in
1537 to study architecture; while there he met many
major artists, including Michelangelo, and made an inter-
esting album of archeological drawings, including some of
frescoes in the Domus Aurea of Nero that are now de-
stroyed. Francisco’s famous Quatro dialogos da pintura
antiga, recording conversations in Rome in1538, appeared
in his Tractato de pintura antiga (1548).Francis Xavier, St. (1506–1552) Jesuit missionary
A Basque of noble extraction, Xavier was born in Navarre.
He was one of the small group of original followers that
IGNATIUS LOYOLAgathered together in Paris, and with him
he took a vow of poverty and chastity in 1534. With
Simon Rodríguez, Xavier succeeded in turning Portugal
into a Jesuit stronghold by gaining both popular and royal
support. In accordance with the wishes of Pope Paul III he
set out for the Indies in 1541 with the intention of re-119922 FFrraanncciiss II