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Chap. XII. LORENZO DI CREDI. 409 Borghese at Rome, Credi shows less strength, but he ani mates the elegant Virgin, the playful infant Christ, and the worshipping boy Baptist with a breath of love and tenderness. He composes the group in the Leonardesque fashion, and gives to the nude of the children some of the puffiness which he exaggerated at a later time. 1 All these examples illustrate the character, as well as the style, of Credi. He .was of the class which took the name of “piagnoni” at Florence, because it agreed with the theory of Savonarola, that everything profane was repre hensible; and Vasari tells us that when the reforming Dominican ordered a holocaust of literary, artistic, and fanciful works at the Carnival of 1497 in Florence, Credi was one of those who sacrificed all that did not savour in his drawings of the purest religion. 2 Yet, Credi was not of a temper to surrender the world altogether as Fra Bar tolommeo had done, nor were his sympathies enlisted in any special manner with the Dominicans; and when the convent of S. Marco quarrelled, in 1507, with Bernardo del Bianco about the price of Fra Bartolommeo’s Vision of S. Bernard, Credi was one of the umpires for the purchaser in conjunction with Gherardo, the miniaturist. 3 parapet behind the group a vase of flowers. Behind the Virgin a red curtain and festoons of flow ers. In the child’s left hand, a fruit. In the same gallery, No. 125, round of the Holy Family, much repainted, hut with the impress of Lorenzo’s school. Carlsruhe Gallery. No. 351. Round of the infant Christ adored by the kneeling Virgin and young Baptist; the stable to the left; a landscape to the right and left. Hair and shadow of neck in the Virgin, white cushion on which the infant rests, the Baptist’s knee, restored (wood, oil). This is an original by Credi, but not equal to that of Mayence. 1 The slender Virgin is very graceful, supporting the child on her lap who leans forward as if to speak with the infant Baptist. She also encircles his neck with her hand. He looks on in prayer; and an open book to the right in dicates the seventh chapter of Isaiah: “Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel”. The drawing, forms, and drapery are of Credi’s earlier period when his style was most redolent of the in fluence of da Vinci and Verrocchio (wood, oil, round). To the left a vase, and through two windows, a landscape view. * Vas. VII. 153. 3 Marchese, Memorie ub. sup. Vol. II. pp. 35—9. 360—1.
