[Illustration: BRICK WINDOW--PALAZZO PUBLICO, BOLOGNA.]
The Academy of the Fine Arts will be visited by every one who cares for Francia, and by many who fancy they care for the Caracci. As one of the former class, I recommend it very heartily. It contains a large collection, gathered in papal times from convents and churches, and mainly by painters of the Bolognese school. This school has the redeeming virtue of counting Francia on its list of painters, which may atone for much. He is seen here to advantage; and one trio, consisting of two of his pictures on either side of one of Perugino's, forms the noblest group in the gallery. Here one sees how much in common the two men had in spite of Francia's more forcible character. The same love of pure and rich colour, the same well-defined grouping, the same religious feeling mark them both. And never, I think, has the Madonna--pensive, lowly, and simple--been more beautifully represented than here by Francia. It is a face that one hopes to remember. Here, too, is Raffaelle's S. Cecilia, no doubt a very great work, but not great quite in the sense one wishes to understand the word at his hand. S. Cecilia and S. John are very fine, but S. Paul is a sort of burly ruffian. The heavenly choir is very mundane, and the whole work somewhat academical in its design and treatment. The earlier pictures here are very disappointing. The early Bolognese painters seem to have painted coarsely and heavily, and to have drawn badly, and there is no comparison for a moment between their work and that of the early Sienese and Florentine painters on the one hand, and those of Padua and Verona on the other. One has indeed in their works a sort of foretaste of what one has from their followers--the Caracci, Domenichino, Bagna-Cavallo, and to some extent Guido. Dismal colour, great striving after chiaroscuro, violent and distorted attitudes, and a purely conventional and academical style, are not great recommendations of any school, but they are things which must be accepted if one is to enjoy these works at all heartily.
A very short railway journey takes one from Bologna to Modena. The one object of interest here is the cathedral, but this is a building of extreme historical and architectural value, and has fortunately been left with so few alterations that we can make out its history with fair certainty. At Bologna everything was built of brick--here at a short distance we find our eyes rejoicing again in the sight of stone and marble.