Chap. XVI. RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAIO. 521 grew up strong and hearty, and had the advantage, after his father’s death, of being acquainted with most afrtists of promise in Florence, whose rivalry or council might compensate for the deficiencies of his uncle. He went early to the Brancacci chapel, where most of his cotem poraries copied the frescos of Masaccio, and later to the papal Hall, after the cartoons of Michael Angelo and Leonardo had been opened to public view; 1 but the persons to whom he was most indebted for guidance and encouragement were Granacci, Piero di Cosimo, and per haps Rosselli himself. Under the combined influence of the examples be queathed by his father and uncles and of the precepts instilled into him during the course of a careful education, he laboriously perfected a “Procession of Christ and the Marys to Calvary” now in the Palazzo Antinori a S. Gaetano in Florence. Benedetto’s idea of this sub ject had obviously left a vivid impression on his mind; and whilst he probably felt how little it was calculated to satisfy the requirements of the time, he appro priated some of its principal combinations with intuitive tact. We thus see at the Palazzo Antinori a composition more artfully balanced, richer in details, and more co pious in its filling than that of the Louvre, and drawing that reveals more study of models or of nature; but we mark also the repetition of unattractive types like that of the S. Veronica with its round staring eye, or of scowl ing soldiers with features gathered into wooden cor rugations. The weighty coarseness peculiar to Gra nacci contrasts here and there with more select shapes such as that of the Redeemer' whose bending figure recalls Leonardo, the Virgin who wrings her hands with dignified grief, or the female in rear of her, whose pleas ing and regular face is replete with soft melancholy. life was despaired of. His parents I he was saved . bee annot. Vas. “vowed a taper of three pounds | XI. 298, and Tav. Alfab. to the Madonna delle Carcere, and I 1 Vas. III. 162. VIII. 6. XI. I 286. 7.