The figure of Franco Bolognese, an illuminator believed to have been active in Bologna between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and supposedly the founder of a prominent school in the city, is an elusive one. No existing documentation remains today of his work or his existence, with two remarkable exceptions: a mention in Dante’s Divina Commedia and a reference in Giorgio Vasari’s account of the life of Giotto. However, Franco has played an important role in the literature on art and in modern art history. Remarkable importance was attributed to him by Carlo Cesare Malvasia in his Felsina Pittrice in the attempt to argue for Bologna’s role in the revival of art in Italy against the primacy of Florence claimed by Vasari. Indeed, the mention in the Commedia and the summons from the pope reported by Vasari made Franco the ideal candidate to counterpose to Giotto, despite the absence of his artworks or knowledge of his artistic qualities, and despite the presence of other painters, such as Vitale, about whom much more was known. Even modern scholarship has proved not to be immune to the fascination of drawing on Dante’s passage: the temptation to translate the verses into artistic qualities has led to many attempts to infer a style from the exegesis of the poet’s words attributing them to existing manuscripts and to identify Franco as the figure representing a change in style in Bolognese manuscript illumination of the time.
