But the artist who produced an epoch in his school is Marco Zoppo, who having transferred his education under Lippo to the studio of Squarcione, rose to equal eminence with Pizzolo and Dario da Trevigi; and, like them, vied with the genius of Mantegna, and gave a farther spur to his exertions. He also studied some time in the Venetian School, where he painted for the Osservanti, at Pesaro, a picture of the Virgin on a Throne, crowned, with S. Giovanni the Baptist, San Francesco, and other saints, and signed it _Marco Zoppo da Bologna Dip. in Vinexia_, 1471. This is the most celebrated production which he left behind him; from which, and a few other pieces in the same church, and at Bologna, we may gather some idea of his style. The composition is that common to the quattrocentisti, particularly the Venetians, and which he probably introduced into Bologna, a style which continued to the time of Francia and his school, for the most part unvaried, except in the addition of some cherub to the steps of the throne, sometimes with a harp, and sometimes without. It is not a free and graceful style, like that of Mantegna, but rather coarse, particularly in the drawing of the feet; yet less rectilinear in the folds, and bolder, and more harmonious, perhaps, in the selection of the colours. The fleshes are as much studied as in Signorelli, and in others of the same age; while the figures and the accessories are conducted with the most finished care. Marco was, likewise, a fine decorator of façades, in which kind of painting he was assisted by his companion and imitator, Jacopo Forti, to whose hand is ascribed a Madonna, painted on the wall, at the church of S. Tommaso, in Mercato. In the Malvezzi collection there is also attributed to Jacopo a Deposition of the Saviour from the Cross; a work which does not keep pace with the progressive improvements of that age. The same remark will apply to a great number of others, produced about the same period, in the same city, which, towards the close of the century, displayed a striking deficiency in good artists. It was owing to this circumstance that Gio. Bentivoglio, then master of Bologna, wishing to ornament his palace, which, had fortune favoured him, would one day have become that of all Romagna, invited a number of artists from Ferrara and Modena, who introduced a better taste into Bologna, besides affording an occasion for the grand genius of Francia to develop itself likewise in the art of painting, as we shall proceed to shew.