174 . THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Chap. VII. polish to the Florentine art of oilpainting on the lines laid down with so much labour and patience by the Pe- selli, the Pollaiuoli, and Verrocchio; 1 nothing more just than that Perugino should be coupled with Francesco Francia as gifted with incomparable feeling in lending- softness to form. 2 But Vasari’s statements receive addi tional confirmation from the pictures of Lorenzo di Credi, the favorite pupil of Verrocchio, whose altarpieces are so remarkable for the devotional grace of action, the smooth ness of surface, and the cast of lined drapery which, whilst they remind us of Leonardo, recall the Umbrian qua lities of Vannucci. We shall see that these Umbrian qua lities were not contemned at Florence, but that on the con trary they exercised an influence similar to that of the Siennese in previous centuries. What these had done of old to temper the severity of their rivals in the person of Orcagna, and to contribute in forming Angelico, the Perugians did anew by means of Pietro Perugino. It may be due to him that the somewhat rugged grandeur of the Florentine school, as represented by Ghirlandaio, was chastened; and that the coarse realism of the Peselli, and of Castagno, from which neither Botticelli, the Pol laiuoli, nor Verrocchio, Piero della Francesca, nor Signo relli were entirely free, was modified. Perugino and Le onardo are both entitled in separate measures to claim the merit of having helped to form Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea del Sarto. One cannot affect to decide in what year Perugino first visited Florence; nor whether that event occurred before 1475, when he had commissions for painting in the public Palace of Perugia; 2 or after 1478, when 1 We must not forget that Va sari is proved to be incorrect when he attempts to show that the oil painting of the Florentines des cends from that of Antonello da Messina. Yet it is high praise to Perugino that his biographer should make him close the period of progress in the use of the new medium (Vas. Introd. I. 1G3. 4). 2 Vas. VII. C. 3 Rumohr publishes the payment to Perugino for this work (Forsch. ub. sup. II. 338).