S. Cecilia, which had to be sent to Bologna to be
placed in a chapel of S. Giovanni in Monte, where there is the tomb
of the Blessed Elena dall' Olio. This he packed up and addressed to
Francia, who, as his friend, was to have it placed on the altar of
that chapel, with the ornament, just as he had prepared it himself.
Right readily did Francia accept this charge, which gave him a
chance of seeing a work by Raffaello, as he had so much desired. And
having opened the letter that Raffaello had written to him, in which
he besought Francia, if there were any scratch in the work, to put
it right, and likewise, as a friend, to correct any error that he
might notice, with the greatest joy he had the said panel taken from
its case into a good light. But such was the amazement that it
caused him, and so great his marvel, that, recognizing his own error
and the foolish presumption of his own rash confidence, he took it
greatly to heart, and in a very short time died of grief.

Raffaello's panel was divine, not so much painted as alive, and so
well wrought and coloured by him, that among all the beautiful
pictures that he painted while he lived, although they are all
miraculous, it could well be called most rare. Wherefore Francia,
half dead with terror at the beauty of the picture, which lay before
his eyes challenging comparison with those by his own hand that he
saw around him, felt all confounded, and had it placed with great
diligence in that chapel of S. Giovanni in Monte for which it was
destined; and taking to his bed in a few days almost beside himself,
thinking that he was now almost of no account in his art in
comparison with the opinion held both by himself and by others, he
died of grief and melancholy, so some believe, overtaken by the same
fate, through contemplating too attentively that most lifelike
picture of Raffaello's, as befell Fivizzano from feasting his eyes
with his own beautiful Death, about which the following epigram was
written:

Me veram pictor divinus mente recepit;
Admota est operi deinde perita manus.
Dumque opere in facto defigit lumina pictor,
Intentus nimium, palluit et moritur.
Viva igitur sum mors, non mortua mortis imago,
Si fungor quo mors fungitur officio.

However, certain others say that his death was so sudden, that from
many symptoms it appeared to be due rather to poison or apoplexy
than to anything else. Francia was a prudent man, most regular in
his way of li