The natural son of
Battista Franco, also a painter and engraver, he was born in 1550, probably in
Urbino or perhaps in Venice, where all his known activity is recorded. He must have trained with his father, who in his youth in Rome had executed some etchings reproducing the
frescoes of the
Sistine Chapel and the
Raphael Rooms. He illustrated books with etchings and engravings, such as
Fabritio Caroso da Sermoneta's
Il ballarino (1581), reprinted several times,
Ovid's
Metamorphoses in the Venetian edition of 1584, and
Torquato Tasso's
Gerusalemme Liberata in the first illustrated edition, printed in Genoa in 1590. ==References==