At the time of Charlemagne, the word Austrasia underwent a change of meaning and became synonymous with Francia orientalis, and was applied to the Frankish dominions beyond the Rhine (Franconia).
But the position is suddenly recovered by Alfred in 878, by the battle of Aethandune, as suddenly though not so unaccountably as it was later in West Francia.
But though he met with sufficient success to encourage him to issue a charter in 858, dated "the first year of the reign in West Francia," treachery and desertion in his army, and the loyalty to Charles of the Aquitanian bishops brought about the failure of the enterprise, which Louis renounced by a treaty signed at Coblenz on the 7th of June 860.
Distanced though he may have been by Raphael, Francia is rightly regarded as the greatest painter of the earlier Bolognese school, and hardly to be surpassed as representing the art termed "antico-moderno," or of the "quattrocento."
Francia had more than 200 scholars.
Francia probably studied likewise the works of Perugino; and he became a friend and ardent admirer of Raphael, to whom he addressed an enthusiastic sonnet.
Giovanni in Monte, Bologna; and Francia, on inspecting it, took so much to heart his own inferiority, at the advanced age of about sixty-six, to the youthful Umbrian, that he sickened and shortly expired on the 6th of January 1517.
He was apprenticed to a goldsmith currently named Francia, and from him probably he got the nickname whereby he is generally known; he moreover studied design under Marco Zoppo.
His later hero was the emperor Nicholas, "the only statesman in Christendom," - as unlucky a judgment as that which placed Dr Francia in the Comtist Calendar.
If we may trust Vasari - but it is difficult to suppose that he was entirely correct - the exceeding value which Francia set on Raphael's art brought him to his grave.
In 843, by the treaty of Verdun, it became part of Lotharingia (Lorraine), and in 879 was annexed to the kingdom of East Francia (Germany) by the treaty of Meerssen.
In 879 East Francia acquired the whole; from 912 to 924 it formed part of West Francia.
In the triple partition of the Carolingian empire at Verdun in 843, the central portion was assigned to the emperor Lothaire, separating the kingdoms of East Francia (the later The duchy Germany) from West Francia (the later France).
It also contains a picture gallery with a good "Presentation in the Temple" by Francesco Francia.
Lorenzo Costa was much associated with Francia in pictorial work.
Lothaire had no heir, and in 870 by the treaty of Meerssen his territory was divided between the kings of East and West Francia.
Marcantonio Raimondi, the famous engraver, is the most renowned of them; next to him Amico Aspertini, and Francia's own son Giacomo, and his cousin Julio.
On Francia's death, in 1840, the chief power passed to his nephew, Carlos Antonio Lopez, who in 1862 was succeeded by his son Francisco Solano Lopez.
Quickly attaining a prominent position among the Frankish nobles, he appears as rector of the abbey of Marmoutier in 852, and as one of Charles the Bald's missi dominici, in 853; but soon afterwards he was among those who rebelled against Charles, and invited the king's halfbrother, Louis the German, to invade West Francia.
Raphael cordially responded to the Bolognese master's admiration, and said, in a letter dated in 1508, that few painters or none had produced Madonnas more beautiful, more devout, or better portrayed than those of Francia.
Rhenish Franconia gradually became a land of free towns and lesser nobles, and under the earlier Franconian emperors sections passed to the count palatine of the Rhine, the archbishop of Mainz, the bishops of Worms and Spires and other clerical and lay nobles; and the name Franconia, or Francia orientalis as it was then called, was confined to the eastern portion of the duchy.
Soon after the declaration of independence in 1811, the city fell under the despotic rule of Dr Francia, and then under that of the elder and younger Lopez, through which its development was greatly impeded.
The districts between Neustria and Austrasia were called Media Francia or simply Francia.
The magnificent portrait in the Louvre of a young man in black, of brooding thoughtfulness and saddened profundity of mood, would alone suffice to place Francia among the very great masters, if it could with confidence be attributed to his hand, but in all probability its real author was Franciabigio; it had erewhile passed under the name of Raphael, of Giorgione, or of Sebastian del Piombo.
The National Gallery, London, contains two remarkably fine specimens of Francia, once combined together as principal picture and lunette, - the "Virgin" and "Child and St Anna" enthroned, surrounded by saints, and (in the lunette) the "Pieta," or lamentation of angels over the dead Saviour.
The picture gallery is equally important in its way, affording a survey both of the earlier Bolognese paintings and of the works of the Bolognese eclectics of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Caracci, Guido Reni, Domenichino, Guercino, &c. The primitive masters are not of great excellence, but the works of the masters of the 15th century, especially those of Francesco Francia (1450-1517) and Lorenzo Costa of Ferrara (1460-1535), are of considerable merit.
The printing of the Istoria delle guerre civili di Francia was, however, completed, and the success and sale of the work were immediate and enormous.
The same qualities are noticeable in his Ritratti delle cose di Francia, which he drew up after an embassy to Louis XII.
The six territories which we have signalized - Ireland, Western Scotland, England, the three in West Francia which merge into each other by the end of the 9th century - do not comprise the whole field of viking raids or attempted invasion.
The whole of these vast countries, Northern Francia, with part of Burgundy, and the Rhineland, seem to lie as much at their mercy as England had done before Aethandune, or Ireland before the death of Turgesius.
The word Franconia, first used in a Latin charter of 10J3, was applied like the words France, Francia and Franken, to a portion of the land occupied by the Franks.
This country, north of the Main and the first residence of the Franks, then received the name of Francia Orientalis, and became the origin of one of the duchies into which Germany was divided in the Toth century - the duchy of Franconia (Franken).
This middle kingdom formed a long strip stretching across Europe from the North Sea to Naples, and embraced the whole of the later Netherlands with the exception of the portion on the left bank of the Scheldt, which river was made the boundary of West Francia.