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522 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Chap. XVI. Slightness of build is usually noticeable; and the tones are Slid on with the smoothness of the Leonardesques, Credi, and Piero di Cosimo. 1 How strongly Ridolfo’s young mind could be affected by the constant obser vation of masterpieces by Da Vinci and Credi, may be judged from the low-tinged but highly finished Annun ciation that still hangs in the sacristy of the Montoliveto abbey outside Florence; — a panel in which the gently curved contours and pretty mould of slender and youth ful personages, the broken draperies, and hilly landscape are not less characteristic of this tendency than the hard enamel and thick substance of the colour. 2 There was scarcely one amongst the aspirants to fame in Florentine art at the opening of the sixteenth century who did not feel himself attracted towards Da Vinci, and it probably happened that Ridolfo, knowing Cosimo Rosselli, and being acquainted with Baccio della Porta, as well as Ma- riotto and Piero di Cosimo, caught their enthusiasm for that master, and devoted particular attention to his crea tions. Vasari indeed affirms that Ridolfo studied under Fra Bartolommeo, insinuating that this occurred at the time when Raphael and the Frate had close intercourse with each other; but they might, and we think they did, meet in the shop of Rosselli, whose mode of distribution and thick coating of sombre reddish tints Ridolfo imi tated in 1504, in a Coronation of the Virgin undertaken 1 The landscape is a little cold and yellowish in tone, with trees of a raw green; the touch crisp, and contrasts marked. The figures are half as large as life. The pa nel, partially split vertically in three places, is much injured and repainted in the lower part, and generally deprived of its glazes, the result being yellow flesh with earthy shadow. The picture was once in S. Gallo at Florence (Vas. XI. 287—8). A replica of it, done with the help of Michele di Ri dolfo, is in S. Spirito at Florence. 2 This panel (wood, oil, figures '/ 3 life size) has remained un observed, and at first suggests the name of Granacci; hut on compa rison with the picture previously described, seems more appro priately to come under that of Ri dolfo. The surface has undergone some cleaning, and the head of the Virgin is raw from that cause. There is some resemblance in her face to that by Domenico Ghirlan daio in the panel once at S. Giusto and now at the Uffizi, lately changed from No. 1206 to No. 1295.