[Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle,
_History of Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xv. p. 501.] No greater
testimony to Francia Bigio's excellence can be given than the frequency
of his works being mistaken for those of Raphael, but the influence of
his contemporaries was always strong upon him. The _Annunciation_,
painted for the same church, is also described by Vasari as a carefully
designed work, though somewhat feeble in manner. The angel is lightly
poised in air, the Virgin kneeling before a foreshortened building. The
picture was lost sight of in the demolition of the church, but Crowe
and Cavalcaselle [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _History of
Painting_, Vol. iii. p. 500.] believe they have discovered it in a
picture at Turin, the authorship of which is avowedly doubtful. They
mention, however, a celestial group of the Eternal Father in a cherub-
peopled cloud, sending his blessing in the form of a dove, with a ray
of glory. Surely if this be the one described by Vasari [Footnote:
Vasari, vol. iii. p. 336] so minutely, he would not have omitted a part
of the subject so important to the picture.
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