Francia, in addition to his cousin Giulio, who devoted himself but little to painting, gave instructions in the art to his own son of the name of Giacomo. It is often doubtful, as we find in the Gallery of the princes Giustiniani, whether such a Madonna is by the hand of Francesco Francia, or by that of his son, who, in similar pictures imitated closely his father's style, although, in Malvasia's judgment, he never equalled it. In works on a larger scale too, he is sometimes to be pronounced inferior, in comparison with his father, as in S. Vitale, at Bologna, where Francesco painted the cherubs round a Madonna, in his first manner, somewhat meagre, perhaps, but still beautiful and full of animated movements, while Giacomo drew the figures, representing a Nativity of our Lord, more soft in point of design, but with features less beautiful, and in attitudes and expressions bordering on extravagance. At other times, the son seems to have surpassed the father, as at S. Giovanni, of Parma, where there is no artist who would not wish to have produced that fine picture by Giacomo, marked with the year 1519, rather than the Deposition from the Cross, by Francesco. Elsewhere too, as in the picture of S. Giorgio, at the church of San Francesco in Bologna, he rivals, perhaps, the finest works by his father; insomuch that this specimen was ascribed to the latter, until there was recently noticed the signature I., (meaning _Jacobus_) _Francia_, 1526. He appears, from the first, to have practised a design approaching that of the moderns; neither have I observed in his paintings such splendid gildings, nor such meagre arms, as for some time distinguished the elder Francia. He rather, in progress of time, continued to acquire a more free and easy manner, insomuch that a few of his Madonnas were more than once copied and engraved by Agostino Caracci. His heads were extremely animated, though generally less select, less studied, and less beautiful, than his father's. He had a son, named Giambatista, by whom there remains, at S. Rocco, an altar-piece, and a few other specimens, displaying mere mediocrity.