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figures generally are natural and firm of tread, and strongly reminiscent of da Vinci, the fresh round face of the Vir gin, and the graceful combination of her movement with that of the child being an unconscious tribute to the me mory of Vannucci. A landscape, seen through the aper tures behind the throne, is full of pleasing detail. The clean sharpness of metal is given to minutiae; the draw ing is careful, the proportions are fair; relief and per spective are good, and the colour, of a silver grey, is polibhed, harmonious, and greatly fused. The naked child, turning towards the Baptist who points out the Virgin to her worshippers, is coarse in the extremities, but not too pinguid. 1 It is doubtful whether Credi preserved this su periority in the Virgin, child, and saints of S. Maria delle Grazie at Pistoia, which now appears so dimmed and spotty.- Had he always remained up to his first mark, he would have held a higher place in the annals of Florentine art. There is, indeed, but one instance in which he was equally successful; and that is in the Madonna of the Mu seum of Mayence, where a pleasing youthfulness adorns the face of the Virgin, and unusual beauty marks the child, as he turns from his mother’s breast. But the charm is increased by the feeling and truth with which form is given, by the able rounding obtained by the fu sion of a yellowish fiesh-tone into brownish shadows, and by the tasteful application and high finish of borders and festoons of flowers. 3 In the Holy Family of the Palazzo 1 Wood, oil, all but life size, wavy curls is also characteristic The Virgin is dignified in attitude of the influence exercised on Credi and mien, her hands delicately by da Vinci. The flesh is warm formed. There is a youthful fresh- yellow in the lights, and cold in ness in her face. The draperies j the shadows. are Leonardesque. Equally so are | 2 In S. M. delle Grazie or del the pose and type of the bishop, j Letto, formerly al Ceppo (seeVas. whose hands are free from Credi’s ( VIII. 204). The child is in bene- later heaviness; and the dry bony diction, the saints at the sides, nude of the Baptist. The action of John the Baptist and the kneeling thelatter, strained, though there is Magdalen, Jerom and the kneeling power in the head, and force in Martha (wood, oil, figures life the searched out anatomy of the size). frame and limbs, recalls Ver- 3 Mayence Museum. No. 124. rocchio. The head with its thin (Wood, oil, all but life size). On a
