Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/320

274 for the children of San Marco, and together with Giovanni della Corniole, the engraver of the famous gem bearing the head of Savonarola, he witnessed the will of the zealous piagnone architect, Cronaca. Again, in 1505, he was chosen, together with Perugino and Corniole, to value the mosaics executed in the Duomo by Monte da Giovanni, a miniature painter who illuminated choir-books for San Marco, and frequently introduced Savonarola's portrait in his designs.

Lorenzo's popularity among his brother-artists, and the confidence which they reposed in his honesty and judgment, is proved by the frequent instances in which he was asked to settle disputes and decide the value of works of art. On one occasion he was called in to settle a quarrel between the Prior of San Marco and a patron who had ordered a picture from Fra Bartolommeo; on another he was chosen to value the paintings of Ridolfo Ghirlandajo in the Palazzo Pubblico and a statue executed by Baccio Bandinelli for the Duomo. He was also among the artists summoned to consult over the façade of the Duomo and the repair of the cupola, and to give their advice regarding the site of Michelangelo's David.

Among the most important works of Lorenzo di Credi's mature period are the Adoration of the Shepherds, with the graceful boy carrying a lamb in his arms, which he painted for the nuns of Santa Chiara, and is now in the Academy, and the Madonna and Saints in the Louvre. This fine work which Vasari calls Lorenzo's masterpiece, originally hung in the church of Cestello, afterwards S. Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, and was carried off to Paris by