FRANCIABIGIO (1482-1525), Florentine painter. His real name was Francesco di Cristofano ; and he was currently termed Francia Bigio, Francia standing for Francesco and Bigio being, the surname. His father was a Milanese weaver, settled in Florence. According to Vasari, Franciabigio when young worked in the company of Andrea del Sarto. He studied under Alber tinelli for a few months, and he was devoted to the study of per spective. One of his early works is the so-called Madonna del Pozzo in the Uffizi gallery which was for some time ascribed to Raphael. In the Atrium of the Annunziata in Florence he painted in 1513 the "Marriage of the Virgin," as a portion of a series wherein Andrea del Sarto was chiefly concerned. The friars having uncovered this work before it was quite finished, Franciabigio was so incensed that, seizing a mason's hammer, he struck at the head of the Virgin, and some other heads; and the fresco, which would otherwise be his masterpiece in that method, remains thus mutilated. At the Chiostro dello Scalzo, in an other series of frescoes in which Andrea was likewise employed, he executed in 1518-19 the "Departure of John the Baptist for the Desert," and the "Meeting of the Baptist with Jesus"; and, at the Medici palace at Poggio a Caiano, in 1521, the "Tri umph of Cicero." Franciabigio was a first-rate portrait painter (Berlin, Pitti, National Gallery, London). The Dresden gallery contains one of his masterpieces, the "Bath of Bathsheba"