Background
Lorenzo Di Credi was born in about 1459 in Florence, Italy.
Lorenzo Di Credi was born in about 1459 in Florence, Italy.
Credi studied painting under Andrea del Verrocchio, along with Leonardo da Vinci; he copied the style of Leonardo with such fidelity that for many years some of his works were attributed to the greater master.
Like Leonardo, he was especially interested in studies of the Virgin and Child. Examples of his work can be seen in the Uffizi, Florence; in the Louvre, Paris; in the National Gallery, London; in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and in other collections. He was the least gifted of three artists who began life as journeymen with Andrea del Verrocchio.
We admire in Da Vinci's heads a heavenly contentment and smile, in his technical execution great gloss and smoothness of finish.
Credi's faces disclose a smiling beatitude; his pigments have the polish of enamel.
But Da Vinci imparted life to his creations and modulation to his colours, and these are qualities which hardly existed in Credi.
Perugino displayed a well- known form of tenderness in heads, moulded on the models of the old Umbrian school.
Peculiarities of movement and attitude become stereotyped in his compositions; but when put on his mettle, he could still exhibit power, passion, pathos.
Credi often repeated himself in Perugino's way; but being of a pious and resigned spirit, he generally embodied in his pictures a feeling which is yielding and gentle to the verge of coldness.
Credi had a respectable local practice at Florence.
He was consulted on most occasions when the opinion of his profession was required on public grounds, e. g. in 1491 as to the fronting, and in 1498 as to the lantern of the Florentine cathedral, in 1504 as to the place due to Michelangelo's "David. "
The greater part of his time was spent on easel pieces, upon which he expended minute and patient labour.
The best of his altar-pieces is that which represents'the Virgin and Child with Saints in the cathedral of Pistoia.
A fine example of his easel rounds is in the gallery of Mainz.
Credi rivalled Fra Bartolommeo in his attachment to Savonarola; but he felt no inclination for the retirement of a monastery.
