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As years rolled on, and the impressions of his youth became weaker in Credi, he lost some of his early strength in excessive attention to manipulation. The Baptism of Christ of the company del Scalzo, now at the Uffizi, af fords an indication of this change being less satisfactory in the nude, stiffer in movements, and more mannered in form than previous specimens of his skill, though still firmly drawn and highly enamelled, and redolent to a certain extent of Verrocchio’s teaching. 1 Still more pol ished, but perhaps more affected in its softness, is the wonderfully clean and cold Madonna with the child, be tween SS. Julian and Nicholas, at the Louvre, in which excessive daintiness of attitude and tread, gaudiness of key, and slight chiaroscuro are symptoms of loss of power. 2 But the most important specimen of Credi in this period of his career is the Nativity at the Academy of Ai’ts in Florence, of which a line engraving accom panies this page. 3 Whereas in the Madonna of the Pis- toia cathedral the nude is drawn with the anatomical re search natural to a fellow student of da Vinci, that of the Nativity only reminds us of Leonardo’s pupils. There is something resembling the spirit of Luini, in contours which avoid marking bone and muscle, and in the low tones of flesh and drapery. Yet, the harmony is good, the handling careful, the drapery well arranged; and the minuteness of the charming landscape is equalled by that of the foreground of rock and grasses. Credi has not left a better instance of the striving in an artist of the sixteenth century to embody religious sentiment. He suc ceeds in rendering a grave and timid melancholy, and 1 This picture was in S. Dome nico till quite lately, and is now in a private room at the Uffizi. The colour of the flesh is yellowish and shadowed coolly (mentioned in Vasari VIII. 206, wood, oil, figures all but life size). Three angels kneel on the left, and in the dis tance of that side is the Baptist’s sermon. 2 Louvre, No. 177, originally at Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi or Cestello (Vas.VIII. 205). Wood, oil, figures life size. 3 Galerie des grands Tableaux. No. 51. (wood, oil, figures almost life size). See Vas. VIII. 205.